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HAMMER MARKS 

A BIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL 

By ARTHUR HOUGHAM 

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Author of “ Gabriel Quel ford” 


BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
1924 


PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 





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TO 

MY FRIEND 

DR. CYRIL R. LUNN, M.B. 


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CONTENTS 


PART I. 

RUDYARD STREET. 


PAGE 

. 13 

PART II. 

CHAPEL GROVE 

• 

. 57 

PART III. 

BOLSOVER STREET 

* 

. 175 

PART IV. 

APRIL 


. 279 



HAMMER MARKS 


PART I RUDYARD STREET 

Chapter I 

" You are not to come in here, Arno.” 

Her face shone pale in the darkness of the window 
through which she looked. Her voice was flexile and 
unguarded of tone, betraying, to one who cared to note, 
each fashion of her emotions ; not so her face ; it betrayed 
nothing, not joy nor sorrow, hope nor despair ; even her 
eyes were silent as to the battles of her heart. She 
lived in the blind-walled fortress of her reserve, which 
was something of a prison, but by her tell-tale voice her 
husband knew that there were fountains in its inner 
courtyard, and whether they flashed high enough to 
glint in sunshine or welled slowly and darkly away, he, 
Jeffry Brooke, her husband, knew the manner of them. 

“ Arno,” she called again, with a wash of song in her 
voice; such song as the breaking sea-wave throws to 
space. 

Her son did not heed, even if he heard. He held a 
triangle of blue glass over a square of yellow and stared 
through them at the sun. Arnold Brooke was six years 
old, and when a boy is six in his years he appreciates 
a green sun as a change from the ordinary, everybody’s 
sun, which makes his eyes water when he stares at it 
through his finger-slots. 

Arnold’s mother saw that he was far too interested 
in his own affairs to be likely to penetrate into her own, 
so she turned from the window. Then, remembering 
that she would require all the light which she could 
13 


14 HAMMER MARKS 

obtain, she raked the cotton lace curtains back along 
their tape. 

Arnold considered the mystery of the green sun for a 
minute before he dropped the glass trinkets to the heap 
at his feet. He picked up others of different colours 
and began to make absorbing experiments. He con¬ 
ducted these experiments with the puzzled seriousness 
of an alchemist, rather than the carelessness of a child 
who takes a toy, and takes a toy, and takes a toy. 

“ A green sun is silly,” he announced, crossing and 
crossing his magic glasses. “ The blue sun is the moon, 
but the red glass makes the sun white. What for ? 
It ought not to look white,” he reasoned. “ It ought to 
look lik e one of the knots in the ash-house door, when 
you shut yourself in and the sun shines outside.” 

He would have liked to look at the knots in 
the ash-bin door through the red glass, and see what 
happened then; but the ash-bin was forbidden ground 
because of “sentry” and fever. He did not believe 
there was a sentry there, because he had watched for 
horns and had not seen one ; but he knew the fever was 
there, because the big boys who brought him bits of glass 
from the tip, and who knew almost everything, had seen 
a gravestone, and on it the words : “ Miskin door! 
Miskin door! Don’t you open the miskin door, for 
that has brought me to my grave.” 

Arnold turned his attention to the house, scrutinising it 
through the ruby glass. His house looked lovely. It 
was twice as good as the other houses in the court, 
because they were the back houses, single houses ; his 
was a double house. It was the best house in Rudyard 
Street; in all Birmingstow; in all the world. It was 
three times as good as the other houses in the court, 
because the front room was a shop, and it had a back¬ 
yard ; none of the other houses in the court had a back¬ 
yard with a fowlpen in it. It was hundreds of times 
better ; billion, million, trillion times better : a lot better ! 

And his father was a lot better father than theirs, 
each’s, all of them’s—only he had the toothache. His 
father was a gun action maker and had a workshop that 


RUDYARDSTREET 


15 


was as good as his own. A lot of men worked for him ; 
only his father had the toothache and his master would 
not let him work. His father used to get lots of money 
before he had toothache bad, so much bad. It hurt, 
only men did not cry like little boys as was hurt. Before 
he was bad, his father used to wash his Arnold in the big 
tin bath with peephole handles ; his mother washed him 
now at night; his mother wore a hard ring and washed 
him as if she wanted to get him clean : his father washed 
him as if he loved his Arnold. Because his father was 
poorly, the boys brought Arnold bits of glass from the 
tip, and Mr. Rockby, who painted pictures with long 
brushes, let Arnold sit and watch him work in the 
" stewdy-io.” He liked Mr. Rockby. But he loved 
his father. 

Yes, he liked his house best through the red glass ; 
then it was almost as wonderful as when he bent and 
looked at it upside down from between his legs, with the 
sky running underneath it like the seaside on the posters. 

Suddenly he had an inspiration ; he would look at 
the house upside down and through the red glass at the 
same time. Wasn’t that funny ! He could not see the 
house at all; he only saw what was behind him at the 
end of the yard—the fowlpen against the wall, the end 
of the general wash-house, and the round-faced iron 
tap like a baby weighing-machine. That was a good 
game the big boys played ; somebody stood on the sough 
to try their weight and pretended to put a penny in 
the slot, then another boy who knew the game would 
turn the handle and the water would come all over their 
feet. 

Above the wall Arnold could see John Rockby’s 
studio and the backs of the big houses in Athol Crescent. 
He thought that when he grew up he would like to be 
an artist and paint pictures like John Rockby. John 
Rockby’s father was a doctor, but even then he was 
not as good as Arnold’s father. 

His attitude caused his head to swim. He straight¬ 
ened his back, and then sat down on the hard ground 
with his treasure enclosed in the V of his legs. In 


16 


HAMMER MARKS 


addition to the shapes of coloured glass there were long 
edgings of Muranese glass discarded by stained window 
makers ; and scoops of mother of pearl, scalloped and 
fretted with round holes, from the button factory ; and 
bright snippings of scrap tin. Placing his coloured 
fragments side by side on the beaten ground he began 
to construct a great flower pattern, changing it and 
changing it with kaleidoscopic changes, until it was so 
big that he had to travel round it on hands and knees to 
place the last jewels on the winking points of the star. 
It gleamed a glorious, barbaric decoration in the drab 
court. 

In the centre of the orderly spangles was a red glass disc 
intended for window lettering. Arnold crawled between 
the points of the star and picked the ruby out; he took 
it on to the low roof of the f owlpen and began to spin it, 
making it skip in a dazzle of rays. 

He was reminded of his tops ; how they pleased his 
father. Had his father not made wagers that no other 
boy could keep nine tops spinning so long as he upon a 
tin tray without them knocking ? 

He made his way into the house. The kitchen was 
dingier than ever now that the naked window gave fuller 
access to the light. His mother was mixing a mash of 
linseed in a blue and white striped basin. The Turkey 
red table-cloth was half turned back, and there were 
scissors and rolls of bandaging and other forbidden play¬ 
things upon a flattened newspaper. His father had his 
hands above his head drawing a steaming cloth to his 
face ; he crossed the bandages and wrenched the hot 
dressing tightly to his cheek. 

Arnold dragged his tray of tops and chalks from under 
the sofa, and, parting the fringe of the Turkey red 
covering, stretched himself in his favourite attitude 
upon his stomach. He lay half way from under the 
table with his tray upon the rag hearthrug ; he leaned 
upon his elbows while he tore bits of paper, and, moisten¬ 
ing them, stuck them on the domes of some of the tops, 
to make coloured wings when they should be spun ; on 
others he made chalk marks, pink and blue. 


RUDYARD STREET 


17 


Arnold looked up at his father to see if he were as 
interested as usual; his father did not notice him. 

To Arnold, in his lowly position, the man looked 
gigantic where he leaned in a sitting posture on the fire¬ 
guard ; his hands were a little way out from his side, 
holding the brass rail which formed the top of the guard ; 
a fire blazed at his back; his head was as high as the 
opaque vases on the black wooden mantelshelf, but not 
so high as the fluffy pampas plumes arranged in them. 

Arnold, looking upwards, saw his father’s face from 
a new direction. The chin was more prominent, and was 
firmly modelled as a knee ; the clipped eaves of the 
brown-gold moustache showed him the dimpled lip 
which usually was hidden, and the pouches beneath the 
eyes showed fuller and more darkly blue ; perhaps it 
was because of the angle of Arnold’s gaze or because his 
father was looking at the ceiling, but the man seemed 
to be bearing patiently great pain; and Arnold loved 
him, loved him every bit. 

“ Are you ready for the next one, Jeffry ? ” asked 
Arnold’s mother. 

“ Yes.” 

The man raised himself a little on the guard and, 
lifting his hands, unfastened the wrappings where they 
were knotted above his head, and lowered the festoon 
of bandages. 

Arnold gave a piercing scream and buried his face 
in his arm among his toys. “ Take him away! Oh, 
take him away! ” he screamed in terror, lest anyone 
should touch him. In the hollow of his father’s throat 
he had seen the livid cancer, seeming to be alive in the 
flickering firelight. 

Arnold ceased to cry out and lay quivering, filled with 
fear. Oh, the horrible thing which was about in the 
house ; the horrible, the ugly, the terrible thing which 
had fastened on to his father. It had been in the house 
all the time and he had not known. He lay terrified 
with a pulsing, unqualified terror ; when he felt the 
touch of his mother’s hand he nearly lost his senses in 
the dread that it might be the unnamable thing which 

Bh 


18 


HAMMER MARKS 


had been bound to his father ; the swollen thing without 
eyes which rippled with fluttering, flame-like life. 

It was his mother who was lifting him ; her breast 
and shoulder were between him and his unhappy father’s 
face ; she was carrying him up the dark staircase to 
his bedroom. He hid his face in her bosom and made 
his breaths with little jerky coughs. She was not taking 
him out of the terrifying house, for he could hear the 
loose handrail on the stairs rattle to her hold. He was 
to stop in the house with the awful silent thing which 
fluttered. 

The bedroom was comfortingly lighter than the kitchen, 
but his mother had left the door open ; he ceased seeing, 
feeling ; he suspended every sense but hearing to listen 
for a sound on the dark staircase. There was no sound. 
Oh, his poor father alone below there with it, and no 
sound! 

His mother laid him on the bed, his head upon the 
pillow, and began to unfasten his boots. Oh, why had 
she left the door open ? She kissed him and held his 
stockinged feet together in her hand—she had always 
liked to fold his feet together between her palms like 
this—but she did not stay ; she was going to leave him. 
He held out his two hands to her. She folded his hands 
in her palms even as she had fondled his feet; her hands 
were warm and moist from the steam. 

“ Be a brave man like father,” she said, and, drawing 
the coverlet over him, she left him, and he heard the 
grateful click of the closing door. 

But the thing was flat! It could come under the 
door and he would not see it; he could not see the bottom 
of the door beyond the bed! He hid under the bed¬ 
clothes, and abandoned himself to unmitigated terror. 

He wanted to shrink and shrink right away so that 
nothing and no one but his mother would find him, and 
his mother could tell his father where he was when the 
thing had gone. 

His mother had told him to be brave like his father 
was, but he knew he could not be brave, he could not 
help being a coward. He began to sob because he 


RUDYARD STREET 


19 


could not be brave although he wanted to be ; his sobs 
began to form words, " I—want to be brave, I want to 
be brave.” He pushed away some of the heavier 
coverings and whimpered, " Father, Arnie wants you. 
Father, Arnie wants you,” and he glided to sleep. 

The afternoon grew so grey that the sickle day-moon 
became distinct; the forge-glow of sunset tempered it, 
and the night came, chilling it to steel; still Arnold slept. 
Several times his mother came to see if he had wakened. 
She undressed him in his sleep and bathed his face, and 
put his white nightgown upon him ; last his father came 
and stayed a long, long while ; kneeling by his bed in 
the darkness, touching him with a quiet hand. He went 
away. 

The moon rose higher, seeming transparent in its 
brilliance. Neither his father nor his mother came 
again to the room, but feet went often up and often 
down the stairs. 

Arnold woke ; it was a kiss which had wakened him, 
a kiss among his hair. 

“ Father wants to see you.” It was his mother’s 
voice speaking. 

Arnold was widely awake, so freshly and clearly 
awake. He climbed from the bed and found his mother’s 
hand, and stepped with her to the door which was open, 
showing the light from his father’s room across the little 
landing. There was a step down to the landing, and a 
step up into the room beyond; Arnold carefully made 
the crossing. 

His father’s room was lit by an oil lamp upon a 
table of thin wood stained to imitate mahogany. To 
Arnold the room seemed well lit. He met his father’s 
gaze as soon as he had passed the open door. He saw 
nothing else but his father. He did not wonder why 
he was wanted ; he only looked into those very beautiful 
grey eyes as he walked round the foot of the bed, and 
loved his father, and loved him, and loved him. 

As the face of a gentle knight framed in a cowl of 
chain mail, the oval of his father’s face was bound about 
with a capuchon of white linen ; a blanched, spent face, 


20 


HAMMER MARKS 


made vivid by the light in the eyes, made tender by the 
soft curves of the lovable mouth in the shadow of the 
golden-red moustache. 

His father held out his arms to him, and he went 
into them for a few very little minutes. 

They kissed. 

“ Good-bye, Arnold.” 

“ Good-bye, father.” 

The embrace opened, and Arnold moved from it. 
For a moment they told all their love, each to the other s 
eyes. Arnold felt a coin being placed in his palm ; his 
fingers closed over it; the ritual was ended ; he had taken 
upon the tablets of his mind, indelibly, a picture of his 
father—a pale and golden knight. 

Arnold took his mother’s hand and went carefully 
from the room, carefully across the landing, and waited 
for her to lift him into his bed. He lay awake, but no 
thoughts came to blur the outline, and later, when he 
fell asleep, no dreams. 

In the sparse moonlight the barbaric star which Arnold 
had made gleamed like a decoration in the dreary courts 


Chapter II 


Arnold grew into a boy of very glum aspect, and it may 
have been his joyless expression which warded off from 
him the fellowship of other boys of his own age, and 
caused him to lead a life strangely unchildlike in its 
friendlessness. As he approached the time when he 
would be leaving schooldays behind he began to feel 
this isolation, and it weighed upon and cramped his 
spirit. Books he did not care for, but he was happy 
with a pencil and paper or with tin boxes of paints, 
sitting in the small kitchen while his mother served in 
the shop, or did plain sewing for people of better 
circumstances who lived in the Crescent. 

It had been eight years since his father died, but his 
mother, by means of the little shop, her needle, and much 
personal forgoing of comforts, had kept him well fed, 
well dressed, and provided with childish pleasures 
which Rudyard Street considered “ waste, a sin and 
a shame.” 

“ Why don’t you go out and play the same as the 
other boys while the light nights are here ? You'11 
wish you had when it’s dark,” his mother would ask, 
and he would rise obediently, leaving his pictures, to 
go and stand against the lamp-post at the corner, from 
whence he watched the children playing. He had a 
peculiar dread of his mother finding out that he himself 
did not play, but only stood and apathetically watched 
the games of others. He would wait until the children 
were called to their homes, or were dragged there, 
protesting loudly, when he would run back to his 
pictures, glad to be released by the late hour from the 
penance of play. 

Sometimes the urchins invited him to share their 


22 


HAMMER MARKS 


amusements, but always he shook his head. “ He can’t 
play cause he’s a coward,” they would cry, and as he 
backed away to the corner wall they would jeer and 
sing in chorus a doggerel verse, “ Cowardy, cowardy 
custard! Can’t eat a bit of mustard.” He would 
regard them until they were tired and then return to 
his lamp-post position to consider the force and merits 
of their gibe and song. 

He accepted their dictum that he could not play 
by reason of his being a coward. It never entered his 
head to question their summing up and judgment. 
Yet he was not shy, for he entered into any necessary 
intercourse with them without restraint. He was not 
reserved, for he thought they were rather fine fellows, 
these urchins of his own age. He was not sensitive, 
for he never avoided their ridicule. His lack of interest 
in games and fellowship was not occasioned by his being 
a weakling. This he tested secretly, running alone in less 
time the distances they raced, so many times round the 
square ; climbing the lamp-posts, and throwing from the 
top of the street to beyond Bloom’s Alley. 

It became an established fact with them and him that 
he was a coward. During the impressionable years of 
ten to fifteen in his age his beliefs were instilled with the 
subtle aroma of his cowardice—beliefs which per¬ 
meated his thoughts, his actions, his conscience. 

That he did not fear physical pain did not affect his 
opinion of his cowardice ; to be afraid of being hurt 
was only ordinary cowardice; his was something 
worse. 

On a late September evening, when powdery chaff, 
dirty paper and vegetable refuse, and silt in the gutters 
made Rudyard Street look as if an open market had been 
held there, Arnold leaned against the corner lamp-post 
and knocked his heels on the curb and wished for night 
to come soon. With tame interest, as of one who 
watches a play seen many times before, he was looking 
at a group of boys cautiously approaching a house 
opposite him. The foremost urchin carried several 
jagged pieces of sheet glass, the others slunk close 


RUDYARD STREET 


23 


at his heels, exhibiting stealth common to footlight 
villains. 

The boy with the glass flung it at a doorstep, his com¬ 
panions of the moment thumped the house window as 
the glass crashed, and then all scampered to find hiding- 
places. The house door was snatched open and an 
elderly woman rushed into the street, followed by a man 
several years younger. She felt about the window- 
pane with the flat of her hand, although she could see 
it was undamaged. She stooped to the shattered glass 
and picked scraps of it up. 

“ It must be the fanlight or one of the bedrooms 
Bert. Little imps ! ” she exclaimed. 

Bert was more interested in seeking the perpetrators 
of the deed. He caught sight of Arnold, and, crossing 
the road, brought him unresisting to the scene of the 
jest. “ Here’s one on ’em,” he said. 

“ No, it wouldn’t be him, Bert. That’s Mrs. Brooke’s 
son, and he,can’t play.” 

“ Can’t play ? He’s a funny kid if he can’t play. I 
never knew one yet.” 

“ No. When his mother was carrying him they found 
out her husband had a cancer and would die, but it 
went dormant.” 

“ D’you mean he’s a bit touched ? ” asked Bert. 

“ No, I don’t. He’s as smart a kid as there is in the 
street, but he don’t know how to enjoy himself.” 

“ Poor little devil! I suppose if his father had 
cancer he’ll have it ? ” 

“ Nothing so sure. It’s always handed down.” 

“ You’ll frighten the kid,” said Bert, forgetting that 
he had instigated the remark. 

“ Not me ; he’s too young to know what we’re talking 
about.” 

“ What is a cancer ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ It’s a silver new nothing to wear on your sleeve. 
You run off while you are safe.” 

Arnold walked gravely to the little shop. He went into * 
his bedroom and fumbled in the dark for his dictionary. 
He could feel which it was as it had no cover. He 


24 


HAMMER MARKS 


brought it down, and, spreading it on the table, found 
the page he sought. 

“ A genus of crustaceans ; one of the twelve zodiacal 
signs ; the sign of the summer solstice ; a malignant 
tumour.” 

The whole explanation as set forth served to deepen 
the mystery ; six of the words were strange to him. He 
began to look them up in the book. 

“ What are you looking for ? ” enquired his mother. 

“ Solstice,” said Arnold, who had progressed thus 
far. 

“ What do you want it for ? ” she asked. 

“ It came in a lesson at school to-day,” he answered. 

“Now why did I tell that He ? ” he asked himself. 
“ I suppose it’s because I’m funky, and I always shall 
be.” 

“ Mr. Rockby has started teaching at the School of 
Art,” said his mother, “ evenings as well.” 

“ I know,” said Arno. 

“ Should you like to go to the School of Art and be 
in his class ? ” 

Arnold thrust the book aside at this suggestion. 
“Oh, that would be lovely,” he said. 

“ Go and wash your face then, and wait at the corner 
of the Crescent until he comes. He is sure not to be 
long now.” 

“ But I did wash my face this morning,” protested 
Arnold. 

“ Then wash it again,” said his mother. “ You’ve 
got lots of time.” 

Cleaned and brushed, Arnold walked through the 
little shop into Rudyard Street. Rudyard Street after 
dark revealed to the full the marrow of its sordid misery. 
When lamps and candles were lit, old sacks and pieces 
of faded rag fastened across the lower windows served 
to attract inquisitive attention to what was not hidden 
in the living-rooms, and but little was hidden above 
table-level. But if the inquisitive attention was a 
stranger’s, he glanced through no more than one window, 
for with concerted disapproval the whole population of 


RUDYARDSTREET 


25 


the street appeared menacingly at doorways and 
windows and the entrances of courts, gathered by fee lin g 
in general the contagion of a common itch. Rather than 
method it was a law none analysed which governed the 
swiftness to communicate between and the readiness to 
co-operate of all the corpuscles crowding in the arteries of 
Rudyard Street. 

So Rudyard Street had lit its lamps and made a sneer¬ 
ing pretence at privacy with rags and old newspapers, 
and then had put bricks against wide-open doors and 
lit more dripping tallows in the bedrooms, that it might 
wash and eat, dress and undress, quarrel and cook, in 
comfortable publicity. 

It was Thursday night, and there was scarcely any 
money in Rudyard Street pockets ; the “ Rose and 
Crown ” and “ The Why Not Inn ” had little spittle on 
their sanded floors. The men lolled against walls, 
finding ease and satisfying their vanity by the height 
to which their shirt-sleeves were rolled ; their hands 
were ever roving, on pipe-stems or in the covert depths 
of their flap pockets. The women who had babies sat 
on doorsteps and suckled them, those who had not 
fidgeted with their fingers in their hair or their blouses. 
The whole of the visible population was watching the 
excited manoeuvres of various mongrel dogs. Arnold 
also watched the dogs, since, bred of Rudyard Street, 
he was becoming to have one eye, one mind, one appetite 
with the denizens thereof. To lose initiative and sacri¬ 
fice personality apart from the whole body’s personality 
was the lot of a corpuscle of Rudyard Street. 

He turned at the corner by the “ Rose and Crown ” 
and waited where John Rockby must pass to reach 
Athol Crescent. 

As Rudyard Street was the edge of the slum area, 
so was the Crescent the edge of a good-class district, its 
rampart which defied the undesirable. 

As Arnold saw John Rockby approach he raised his 
cap and said, “ Good evening, Mr. Rockby.” Then he 
had to slip quickly aside to avoid being jostled by the 
man, who did not alter his pace as he passed. Arnold 


26 


HAMMER MARKS 


looked at the broad back. A quiver ran through him, 
beginning at his heart. 

John Rockby pushed open the iron gate with a thrust 
of his knee and went up the stone steps between the 
shrubs. He knocked the ash from his pipe upon one 
of the pillars, and, taking a latch-key from his vest 
pocket, let himself into the hall. The cradled light in 
the hall showed round his broad back with ochre glow 
for a moment before the door closed. Arnold looked 
at the door as he had looked at the man’s back—with 
an empty mind, with an empty heart. 

He walked toward Rudyard Street, and stopped as his 
mind definitely resumed its action. “ Perhaps he did 
not see it was me,” he thought, and slowly turned and 
retraced his steps to the gate. His hand was between 
the spikes ; he hesitated. “ Perhaps he saw it was me 
only he is bothered and did not want to stop and myther 
with me.” He dropped his hand to his side and turned 
again. He now walked as far as the “ Rose and Crown ” 
before he changed his thought. “ I did not speak very 
loud ; he might not have heard me : No, I did not 
speak loud.” 

A boy with a jug of beer came out of the outdoor 
department of the “ Rose and Crown.” He kicked 
a stone at Arnold, and said casually, as if from force of 
habit, “ Cowardy, cowardy custard.” 

Arnold hesitated, and then walked the way he had 
come. A fit tie more animation came in his tormentor’s 
voice as he cried, “ Er—coward, run away.” But, 
seeing that Arnold ignored him, he stroked the froth 
off the beer with his finger and drew it up his 
nose. 

This time Arnold lifted the knocker of Dr. Rockby’s 
house before a new and arresting thought possessed him. 
“If I’ve only come back because Harry Jenks called 
me a coward I am still a coward, only I am scared of 
Harry Jenks instead of John Rockby.” He lowered the 
knocker. 

“ I’d sooner be scared of Rockby than Harry Jenks,” 
he thought. “ Besides, it’s late, and he would be at 


RUDYARDSTREET 


27 


supper.” Glad that his indecision was ended, he ran 
on his way back to the shop. 

His mother looked up as he dropped the counter-flap 
with a bang and raced into the kitchen. “ Well, have 
you had a nice long chat with Mr. Rockby ? ” she asked. 

She had a pair of scissors in her hand, cutting a piece 
of cloth on the table to the measurement of brown paper 
shapes pinned to it. 

“ This for me? ” asked Arnold, fingering the cloth. 
“ Is it all of a suit or only a jacket ? ” 

“ A suit,” she said. “ I can’t send you among gentle¬ 
men’s sons without making you decent.” She paused 
a minute for his silence to prove if what she thought was 
so, was so indeed. She made a line with a piece of 
soap and asked, “ What did Mr. Rockby say ? ” 

Arnold swallowed with difficulty. 

“ He was having his supper,” he said. “ I’ve got 
to see him when he’s finished. I’ll go now.” 

“ And Arnold.” 

“ Yes, mother ? ” 

“ I think I should call him 4 sir.’ ” 

“ I think I will; he’s a gentleman really, mother, 
isn’t he ? ” 

“ You’ll see,” said Mrs. Brooke. “ You’ve got the 
poke of your cap to the back of your head.” 

Arnold twisted his hat round, and with reluctant 
steps went into the street. 

A maid opened Dr. Rockby’s door in answer to 
Arnold’s peal of the bell. 

“ If you please, miss, can I see Mr. Rockby ? I don’t 
mean the doctor,” asked Arnold. 

“ Don’t pull the night-bell next time,” she said. 
“ I will enquire.” She closed the door, and Arnold stood 
first on one leg and then on the other until she returned. 
“ What do you want to see him about ? ” she asked, on 
returning. 

“ It’s about the night school, please, miss,” said 
Arnold, screwing his cap like a window leather. She 
closed the door again. 

When the door opened, John Rockby stood there. 


28 


HAMMER MARKS 


He overhung the step and peered at Arnold. “ Oh, it’s 
you,” he said. “ What’s the trouble ? ” 

“ Mother thought, sir,” said Arnold, with queer 
distances in his voice, “ that I should like to come to the 
School of Art for nights and that you would look after 
me best in your class.” 

“ There is a nearer School of Art,” said John Rockby 
resentfully. “ I am at the Central. Why don’t you 
go to Mallard Street ? ” 

“ But that is only a board school turned into one for 
the evenings, without proper things—sir,” protested 
Arnold, gathering those forces of aplomb which had 
been disbanded by long disassociation from Rockby. 

“ There’s a branch school in Molesey. That is a 
day and evening art school. It’s provided for cases 
like yours. Why don’t you go there if you want one 
nearer ? ” 

“ But I don’t. I want you to learn me, sir.” 

“ Well, under any circumstances you could not be 
under me every evening. Pupils have to take several 
classes decided on by the principal.” 

Arnold’s tone, which had been all eagerness, became 
deliberate with purpose, and his expression was stead¬ 
fast in its alertness. “ They would give me a pass at 
school, while I am there, for the Central; if I see the 
principal he would give me at least two nights a week 
in your class out of the five.” 

John Rockby’s voice also changed, and changed still 
more as he went on speaking ; changed as old honey 
candying to sugar. He put his hand on Arnold’s 
shoulder. He smiled his broad-lipped smile, by which 
one saw the lower teeth overlapped the others. 

“ How old are you now, Arnold ? ” he asked. 

“ I’m fourteen. I am leaving school soon,” said 
Arnold, his mind running on in front to forestall the 
other’s intention. 

“ Oh, I thought you were older, sonny,” said Rockby, 
with a ripe pout of his great lips. “ That alters every¬ 
thing. Your mother must not dream of sending you 
all the way to town every night.” 


Hl’DVAlU) STIUMOT 


21) 


I oan got ou tho tram to town ; I whall have to walk 
eortww to Mulowoy," 

Now, hut that 1 m not llko town ; town lw not a nioo 
plaoo for llttto hoyw, You toll mothor whet I Hay.” 
Mo raiwod hlw athloto’w knoo, and, put ting It in Arnold'* 
ehowt, gavo him a hlg manly, brotherly wlmvo with it 
aw ho roloawod hlw whouhlor, 

I nlmII l*o having to go to town ovory day to work,” 
wahl Arnold, hut tho door waw olowlng. 

Mrw Hrooko waw tanking tho piooow of (doth togothor 
whou Arnold arrlvod at tho alum. 

Woll ? “ who waid, with hrigntnowM. 

Itookhy'w a good wort, Iwn't no, mothor ? " waid Arno, 
Hinging hlw oap on to tho oouoh, 

Ih ho?" waid Idw mothor, " What'w ho boon 
waving ? 

Ih' tldnkw I'm not old onough to riwk going Into 
town at night and I'd do howl to go to tho branoh wohool 
at Molowoy 

" Should you like that aw woll, Arnold ? " 

" I'd liko It, and it might ho aw nioo aftor all," waid 
Arnold, 

"Tako your ooat olV. U»t mo try tide whapo on you 
now it'w hawtod," who waid, 

Mo wltppod oil hiw ooat, " Mothor," ho waid wuddonly, 

” What»' And hold wt ill," who waid, mumbling hooauwo 
of tho plow in hor mouth. 

" I wiwh hoyw would not way Itookhy waw no good, 
It makow mo wondor until I woo him, thou I forgot 
ovot vfhiug hut what a lino ohap ho lw." 

" Vou aro growing up," waid hlw mothor, pulling 
round (ho ormholo. 

"What, have you out it too whort?" ho awkod, 
apnrohouwlvoly 

" No, it’w plouty long," who waid Thou, aw Arnold 
yawnod, " You're tired, aren't you? Ivlww mo good 
night down horo tonight, to wave mothor oomlng up 
wtairw , who'w wo huwy," 

In tho morning, whon who brought him a oup of toa 
to hiw hodwido, who oarrlod alwo tho uullnlwhod trouworw 


30 


HAMMER MARKS 


and coat, with one sleeve attached. “ Try these on 
before you dress for school,” she said. 

“ Mother, how grey you are,” said Arnold, his hand 
beneath the saucer. 

“ No, I’m not; I have hardly any grey hairs.” 

“ I didn’t mean your hair,” he said, and paused in 
his speech to blow steam from the cup. “ Shall you 
have the clothes done in time for me to-night ? ” 

“ I ought to. I’ve been working on them all night. 
I am going to try to get forty winks before I open the 
shop.” 

A repeated knocking was heard on the shop door. 
“ Oh, there’s somebody started pummelling ; I shall 
have to open the door.” She went to the window, 
flung up the sash, and leaned out. “ I’m coming,” 
she called, and let the sash glide down. “ Put them 
on carefully while I go down, ’cause some of it’s only 
basted ; and don’t jig.” 

As Arnold wormed himself into the clothing he began 
to bawl unmusically the words of his poetry lesson : 


“ Up from the meadows rich with corn, 

Clear on that cool September morn-” 

The suit was ready by the time Arnold returned from 
afternoon school. Beside it on the sofa was a satin 
bow tie, the colour of a blue-bottle’s body, made up on 
a moon of cardboard with a loop of elastic on the back 
which twanged and went “ plunk ” over his collar-stud 
when it was put on. 

The touch of new seams always made Arnold self- 
conscious. As he stood at the door of classroom J, 
which the headmaster of the Molesey School of Art 
had told him to regard as his workroom for the session, 
he whisked his shoulders and patted his tie before 
knocking. There was a sound of movements beyond 
the door, but it was not opened. He knocked again 
and listened. He heard the neighing of a horse and the 
crowing of a cock. 

The door opened, and a red-haired youth came out, 


RUDYARD STREET 31 

pulling the door after him. He began to walk down the 
corridor. 

“ Please-” said Arnold appealingly. 

“ Do you want me, bluebottle ? ” demanded the 
youth. 

“ If you please, I want to go into classroom J. The 
headmaster-’ ’ 

“ Well, then, go in ! ” cried the youth, turning the 
door-knob and giving Arnold a push which sent him 
sprawling into the room beyond. Arnold remained 
crouching for a moment, bewildered by what he saw. 
In the same attitude as himself, but facing him, was a 
goat. The goat lowered its head threateningly, but 
Arnold still gazed at it in stupefaction. A small piece 
of brick struck the goat on the haunch and caused it to 
turn its attention to the missile, which it began to eat 
nonchalantly. 

Arnold blushed furiously ; he suspected that he was 
being baited ; but when he rose there was no jeering. 
The students were apparently accustomed to seeing a 
strange boy hurtled at the animal they were sketching ; 
their eyes glanced at either their drawings or the goat. 

“ Do you mind moving slightly, so that I may see 
the subject,” drawled a pensive voice from behind 
Arnold. “ Perhaps you had better come outside the 
ring, as you might intercept someone else’s view.” 

Arnold saw that the speaker was the red-haired youth. 
The boy made his way between desks to the door and 
examined his surroundings. This was not like an 
ordinary school: he could not see the teacher, yet 
everyone was working. The room was a long, wide hall, 
and there were live animals tied to rings in the floor, 
and live birds in cages ; fowls, ducks, and magpies. 
A great coloured fountain of a peacock was chained by 
the leg to a stand. The students spoke quietly as they 
worked. There was no teacher’s desk raised high; 
there was a teacher ! She rose from beside a pen of 
guinea-pigs and looked round at her charges with a 
satisfied glance. She saw Arnold by the door and 
raised a beckoning finger. She was a rosy-cheeked 




32 HAMMER MARKS 

little lady, and Arnold in his boyishness thought her 
old. 

He handed her the slip of paper which the headmaster 
had given him. 

“ You will need to buy a board, and some paper 
and pencils,” she said, “ but I will lend you some for 
to-night. Should you like to draw doves ? They keep 
rather quiet; the other things are never still.” 

She took it for granted that he would, and led him 
to the far end of the room, where, in a pen, were two 
ring doves dozing on a perch. The pen was on a table 
in a corner with only one desk before it, and while he 
waited he examined the other student seated there. 

She was a girl but little older than Arnold himself. 
She wore a dress of smooth, dark-brown cloth, cut in 
a sweep around the shoulders, from which her neck 
rose, creamy and curved. Her hair was the brown of a 
horse chestnut glossy from the burr. It was tied with 
a winged bow and waved in a coil over the back of her 
chair. She continued studiously at her work, so that 
he saw only the dimpled line of her cheek and the length 
of her lashes ; but he noted that the cream of her skin 
flushed to pink on her cheeks, as does the pastel colour 
on the concave petals of certain roses. 

He glanced at her work. She was painting the doves 
in water-colour. Little tubes and artist’s pans were 
before her, and he observed that she did not moisten 
her brushes as he did. The mistress returned and laid 
a hand upon the desk. 

“ Put your name on the top of the paper and draw the 
birds as well as you can, and I will come later and see 
how far advanced you are,” she said. 

“ Yes, miss,” said Arnold. “ Please, miss, may I 
speak ? ” 

“ Yes. What do you wish to say ? ” 

“ I mean, may I talk like the others ? ” 

“ If you will discuss your work only and not interrupt 
anyone you may.” 

“ May I talk to the girl who is painting the 
doves ? ” 


RUDYARD STREET 


33 


Many little wrinkles suddenly began to twinkle round 
the eyes of the little art mistress. “ I will ask,” she 
said, and addressing the girl with the autumnal hair, she 
said, in a voice where amusement was well hidden, 
“ Miss Sard, have you any objection to conversing 
with a new student while you are working ? ” 

The girl laid her quill-like brushes in a china tray of 
water and rested her hands upon her sketch, palm 
upwards and one upon the other. Arnold had never 
noticed hands so beautiful before ; these looked to him 
as if they had done nothing but beautiful actions since 
they were little baby hands. They were not purely 
white ; they suggested the pink and semi-transparency 
of pomegranate seeds. She tilted her small, valiant 
chin, and her glance comprehended Arnold as it passed 
to the waiting art mistress. To Arnold her eyes were a 
revelation of how beautiful brown eyes could be. Until 
now, all the eyes which he had loved to steep his gaze 
in had been grey. 

“ We have not been introduced yet,” she said, stress¬ 
ing the words as a request. Her voice was not the voice 
of the girls of Rudyard Street—the voice itself was 
different. Without explaining his meaning to himself, 
he called their voices “ hairpin voices ” ; but the voice 
of the picture-painting maid was like that of the one 
choir-boy who was listened to although all the others 
were singing. 

Arnold began to be alarmed by the ceremonious ritual 
involved in his introduction to this girl. In Rudyard 
Street, if a boy wished to be acquainted with a girl he 
pulled her plait as she passed ; if she squeaked or slapped 
his face he had “ clicked ” ; if she ran and told her irate 
mother he had “ touched unlucky.” 

“ Miss Bennetta Sard, may I introduce Mr. Arnold 
Brooke ? ” announced the smiling little art mistress. 

Arnold clung to the back of the chair, wondering what 
pack of formalities he had caused to be unkennelled. 

Bennetta Sard rose and turned the full magic of her 
artlessness upon the boy. He knew that there was one, 
and but one, correct thing which he should do or say; 

Ch 


34 


HAMMER MARKS 


not knowing what it was, he wondered why they did not 
give lessons at school in this kind of thing, and was 
gracelessly silent and motionless. 

“ Arnold Brooke, allow me to introduce Miss Bennetta 
Sard. I do not hold with teachers having favourites, 
but Miss Sard is my most promising pupil.” 

Bennetta Sard inclined her head as slightly as a 
delicately poised brown lily which moves although the 
night is calm. Arnold slowly and with infinite gravity 
made his first bow, the bow of a highwayman, who 
until he received an angel visitor had restrained all 
other guests with a horse pistol. 

“ And now romance has had its quota, said the 
mistress. “ You must commence work. No, do not 
lie upon the board so ; you will become round-shouldered. 
Let the fight fall upon your pencil point. That is much 
better.” 

Although permission was granted, Arnold did not 
address the girl. He became absorbed in his task. 
When the doves moved their positions slightly to rub 
their beaks together he balanced his pencil and regarded 
the girl’s painting until the doves were as before. He 
was glad that he had been placed beside a girl—no, 
by this girl; for, faithful to the opinions of his years in 
his sex, he thought most girls were silly. His associa¬ 
tion with boys had taught him to expect but little 
understanding from them, and left him unimpressed by 
friendship or companionship, and so prepared him at 
an early age to receive the imprint of a love virgin and 
fervent. 

It was Bennetta Sard who first spoke. She said, 
“ Granny likes these pictures of birds better than any 
others of my sketches.” 

“ Do you mean the teacher ? ” asked Arnold. 

Bennetta Sard regarded him for a moment. “ No, 
I meant my grandma,” she said. 

The boy resorted to safe silence and looked at the 
doves. The girl began to collect her little trays and to 
wash them in a black pan of water which was placed 
upon a window ledge. 


RUDYARD STREET 


35 


Arnold regarded with concern these preparations for 
flight. “ Are you going already ? ” he asked. 

“ Yes. I only stay for an hour in the evenings, but 
I attend every evening.” 

The art mistress came to take and examine Bennetta’s 
sketch. “ Why, Bennetta,” she exclaimed, “ you have 
painted the dove with a green eye ! You have never 
made such a mistake before. Pink, Bennetta, pink.” 

Bennetta flushed, and as she leaned over the board 
rubbed her finger upon the bird’s eye as if to efface the 
error. Arnold stubbed his pencil through the paper 
into the board. He saw that the eyes of the painted 
bird were green, with a shiny green which he knew. 
His own eyes were green—that green. 


Chapter III 

Oh, the queer, mad, paltry, princely thoughts and fancies 
which troop across the brain of a youth who is much 
alone ! Not only the variety of the thoughts amaze, 
but their numbers amaze by their host. Into a minute 
are crowded many. Into the day and the week and the 
month press how many more ? And then again, for a 
week, a month, one unimparted thought, uncouth and 
cumbersome, will occupy the brain like a poisoned snail 
swollen too greatly to escape its shell. 

And Arnold Brooke was much alone during his lesser 
youth. From when he left school and began to be a 
wage-earner, until months after his sixteenth birthday, 
his days were spent in pushing a builder’s handcart from 
one given point in Birmingstow to another ; his native 
city provided his feet with a bastinado; apparently his 
deserts for being strong and healthy and apparently 
patient in art. 

He had been attracted to Vibert’s, the house painters 
who now employed him, by seeing in their fine showroom 
window examples of church and theatre decoration 
which purported to indicate their class of business. 
The showroom ceding portrayed a summer sky from 
which fat infants, doubtless intended for wingless cherubs, 
appeared to be on the point of dropping on customers’ 
heads. The walls were hidden by doors, on the panels 
of which were more babies, holding moons and walking 
on flower-stalks. Schemes of decoration were displayed 
on easels. 

When the time had come for Arnold to seek a situa¬ 
tion his mother had asked John Rockby for advice. 

“It is so difficult, Mr. Rockby,” she had said, “ for 
a woman—and an old woman at that—to know what to 
36 


RUDYARD STREET 


37 


put her son to for the best. If his father had been 
spared he’d have looked round for him when he saw 
this time coming, and marked a path for him. A child 
wants a mother more than a father, but now that has 
come a time for him to go out into the world I wish he’d 
been left with a father instead of me, since it had to be 
at all. I have not anyone to look to for advice, and as 
you took an interest in him at one time I thought you 
would understand him a bit. He’s different to other 
boys ; I expect it’s him having no father. He thinks a 
lot of your opinion, so I thought if you could suggest 
what I could put him to ”—she raised her veil to look 
at John Rockby ; she wore her jet beaded bonnet for 
this visit—“ or if you could recommend him to somebody 
who could do with a boy as is clever at drawing, I 
thought perhaps you would not mind my asking.” 

John Rockby had*frowned in thought. 

“ I did not know if firms ever sent to the art school 
for apprentices ? ” she added. 

“ If they do they want them articled and pay no 
salary,” he had said, partly closing his eyes as he faced 
the dilemma. 

“ I could not keep him nice without any as he grows 
up. I do not mind only a little for a year or two if it’s 
for his good. I thought your recommendation would go 
a long way. He’s written after heaps and heaps of 
places, but it’s having nobody behind him, and I think 
Rudyard Street address is against him.” 

“ In my opinion ”—here John Rockby’s brow had 
cleared—“ a boy always makes his way best in the 
world by following his own bent-” 

“ His bent is drawing in any shape or form,” Mrs. 
Brooke had interposed. 

“ And if grown-ups interfere they often put stumbling- 
blocks in the youngster’s path. If I were you, Mrs. 
Brooke, I should send him out to get work, and you will 
see that he will find his own level.” 

Mrs. Brooke had sighed and said as she rose, “ Thank 
you, Mr. Rockby. I knew that you would put me right. 
There’s another thing I wanted to thank you for. 



38 


HAMMER MARKS 


Arnold’s heart is set on being an artist, and I think it 
will keep him out of wild ways as he grows up, just as 
it’s kept him to himself and different from the other 
lads in the street. They know almost as much as grown 
men for wickednesses. It’s only you that s put drawing 
and suchlike into Arnold’s head.” 

John Rockby had made a disparaging movement, at 
the same time allowing himself to appear confused. 
“ Oh, it’s nothing to be an artist, Mrs. Brooke.” 

“ I know it isn’t, but it keeps my lad from going 
wrong and being unmanageable ; that’s a lot to a mother, 
and I want to thank you. I’m going now, but thank 
you for Arnold’s sake as well.” 

So Mrs. Brooke had bought a street guide of Birming- 
stow for Arnold, and had sent him forth with a packet 
of bread and meat, and money for a newspaper, tram 
fare, and a cup of tea. 

There was no “ Boy, with artistic tendencies, leaving 
school,” wanted that day, and he, feeling that his plight 
was hopeless, had applied for and obtained a post as 
an errand boy. But little elated, he had returned to 
Rudyard Street, to hear that his mother would not let 
him go, as the work “ led nowhere.” 

Satisfied with his mother, he had sallied forth again, 
looking for notices on office, warehouse, and factory 
doors, and it was then that he had seen Vibert’s prize 
infants. 

Arnold had not acted on his first impulse of rushing 
into the shop and offering his services. He carefully 
examined the schemes of decoration, and, returning to 
Rudyard Street, asked for money to buy hot-pressed 
paper, having bought which he returned to his upstairs 
room, which he called his studio since the time when 
he had moved his bed and chest of drawers into the 
smaller room over the scullery. 

He set to work and drew with such pains as he had 
taken on no other drawing a scheme of decoration for 
a music-room. He took the outline to the School of 
Art, and, without revealing his purpose, received advice 
as to colouring it. It took him three days of continual 


RUDYARD STREET 


39 


work to complete to his satisfaction, and then, trusting 
to chance that Vibert’s had a vacancy, he took it to the 
office, laid it face downwards on the enquiry counter, 
and boldly asked where he could find Mr. Vibert. 

An office girl with protruding teeth said she could 
not say, as he had been dead for years. 

“ I have come about work. Who do I ask for ? ” 

“ Mr. Button. You’ll find him in the baby farm.” 

“ Where’s that, miss ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ The place with cupids on the ceiling. Here, take 
your malting food advert, with you.” 

Arnold snatched his precious painting, feeling a little 
disturbed. He found Mr. Button in the showroom and 
handed him the scheme for a music-room, saying, “ If 
you please, Mr. Button, this is some of my work and I 
want a situation.” 

Mr. Button put the edge of the picture to his lips, 
by which means he proceeded to whistle a suggestion 
of a tune. 

“ Where do you live ? ” he asked. 

The question which Arnold wished to come last, 
coming first, disconcerted him completely. 

“ Fifty-eight Rudyard Street,” he said, in a thin voice. 

Mr. Button did not show emotion. He nodded and 
said, “ Come to the yard at seven to-morrow morning 
and you can make a start. I’ll pay you four-and- 
sixpence a week to start.” 

Arnold had gone to the yard at seven o’clock on the 
following morning ; a handcart had been given him to 
wheel to a row of villas on the outskirts of Birmingstow, 
and since then for nearly three years he had made daily 
perambulation through Birmingstow, round and about 
Birmingstow, pushing or pulling, as the load went 
easier, the same or a similar handcart. The workmen 
called him the “ traffic manager,” and liked him. 

He made a protest at the end of his first week’s 
employment, and was informed that he was to learn the 
trade all the way through, to begin at the bottom and 
work his way up. By the end of the second week he 
had discovered that Vibert’s had no artistic work of any 


40 


HAMMER MARKS 


kind ; that the mural decorations in the showroom were 
relics of an earlier owner of the business. By the end 
of the month he saw that he was too useful as a beast 
of burden to be appreciated as an embryo artist. 

His working hours during the summer months were 
from six o’clock in the morning until such time as he 
was no longer required at night, which was never earlier 
than eight o’clock and usually near ten o’clock, as it was 
the custom of the trade for the workmen to work every 
moment of daylight during the busy season’s rush in 
the hopeless endeavour to retrieve what was lost in 
the financial debacle occasioned by the disheartening 
slack season. Many as Arnold’s working hours showed 
on his time sheet, the time sheet was no criterion, for 
he booked his time from whichever job he had taken 
materials to overnight to whichever job he took a load 
to in the evening. Vibert’s class of trade, being cheap 
cottage work, was spread over the whole area and 
suburbs of Birmingstow, which meant that Arnold 
dragged himself, dazed from the paralysis of sleep, at 
four o’clock or even dawn, and at night reached Rudyard 
Street again when the “Rose and Crown” was ejecting 
its sots. 

He never knew what his mother thought on those 
summer evenings as she locked the shop door after him. 
Ashamed of his daily routine, he led her to believe he 
was making great progress in his work. He would 
drop into the spindle-backed chair too weary to eat 
his supper, and begin to doze, so sick with tiredness that 
he allowed her to unlace his boots. 

He endured the cursed summers—when the sun 
blistered the paint on his handcart—because working 
hours were not so many in the winter, and he could then 
get to the School of Art three or four nights out of five 
in the week. He endured the whole year in the trade 
since, spite of letters and stolen interviews, he could get 
no artistic employment. 

When he grumbled to the workmen they would tell 
him that he was lucky to be in regular employment, and 
that things were not so bad as when they started in the 


RUDYARDSTREET 


41 


trade ; wages were better. Arnold was born on the 
day that Birmingstow was made a city, and he was 
now in his sixteenth year. By means of overtime he 
sometimes received fourteen shillings when he was paid 
on Saturdays. 

Oh, the fierce, vehement thoughts which lashed his 
intelligence with thongs of truth as he thrust the 
handcart forward with his thighs and gripped the 
handles which were worn and polished with his fingers— 
his artist’s fingers. 

This trade, which was no occupation but only a 
feverish upheaval of a dispassionate section of labour 
for a few of the better months of the year and then a 
dragging, scarce visualised makeshift for a minor 
number of its followers until the busy season recurred, 
what was the value of it as a trade to a man who 
married and wanted children? From April to June 
a scrambled diving for bits of work ; from June to 
August-end a rabid round of toil, with pounds which 
seemed bountiful after the dearth of pence ; and then 
September, when the work dribbled down and down 
until there was work for only the minority during the 
winter months till the spring. 

And the men, what did it make of them ? How could 
such a precarious existence—comparative prosperity 
fluctuating with actual poverty—make royal the human 
character ? Oh, he had watched them. How they 
drivelled and were piteous in the winter months, and 
with the coming of the setting-in of the annual pros¬ 
perity how they were arrogant and inflated by the 
rattling in their pockets and the knowledge that they 
could get work anywhere, that there were not enough 
painters to go round ; how they bought gay clothing 
and were silken of sock, and had merry nights—and 
they were right to be merry, for had they been starving 
with thrifty forethought, six months’ wages would not 
have supplied the year. 

Yes, they were right to live for the moment, but 
they were not right when the work began to fall off to 
drop their arrogance so suddenly, to seek by stealthy 


42 


HAMMER MARKS 


device and conspicuous cunning to be the ones who 
should have the licks of work which yet should dribble 
among them. 

A man needed to be made of something else than clay 
to resist such recurring tides of poverty. He, Arnold 
Brooke, would become the same as they were—a 
slinking creature of self-pity for seasons, alternating 
with seasons when he would be a blown, reckless 
upstart, whose only trust was in a good winter’s work 
coming, and each time as he should see the work falling 
off he would sneak and he and cheat to be kept at work 
another month, another week, a couple of days. Yes, 
he would grow like them. He felt that since they all 
were the same it was not to be escaped. How did he 
know what a hard winter followed by a good season 
and then another hard winter would make of him— 

unless he could get out of the trade, unless- There 

was no way out! 

It was on an August noon that he pushed the hand¬ 
cart. His load was a bosh of powdered lime, balanced 
above the axle, and so often as a stone jolted the wheel, 
so often the biting powder rose in a puff and made his 
nostrils wince and his eyes smart. He allowed the 
perspiration to trickle where it would, making his 
collar limp. His shirt had risen and was rucked under 
his armpits, causing him varying discomfort, but his 
thoughts continued to run in the channel of their 
main theme, despite minor currents. 

The winters would be the worst times to him when 
he grew up, but as yet they were not so bad ; he looked 
forward to them. He wondered if art would ever show 
him a way of escape ; if he did any good by giving all 
his scanty leisure to it, or if he attended the art school 
so assiduously only because he met Bennetta Sard 
there, brown eyed, quiet voiced, gentle Bennetta Sard ; 
but for whom he would not have known that his youth 
was youth. 

How tactful she was ; how she lacked inquisitive¬ 
ness ; how she made him admire her sex. What a 
little she revealed of her life. He feared to ask even 



RUDYARD STREET 


43 


her address lest in courtesy he should be expected to 
reveal his own, or the manner of his occupation ! 

He wondered when the fearful day would come when 
some student at the Central Art School, where both 
now attended, should see him at his humble duties 
and betray him to Bennetta Sard. 

This thought pricked him with alarm ; he flinched as 
the probability of its fulfilment occurred to his mind. 

He was passing through Broad Row, which is one of 
the central ducts of Birmingstow. He looked round as 
if fearing this to be the actual moment of discovery. 

No one was regarding him except a man on the step 
of the Paintplex Decorating Company. Arnold met the 
man’s glance ; the freemasonry of the trade made it 
incumbent for one “ brother brush ” to acknowledge 
another if their dress or occupation of the moment 
proclaimed them to be suoh. Arnold, seeing that the 
man was apparently an employer, was shifting his 
glance but the man nodded. Arnold nodded with 
customary trade civility and looked at the window, 
where was pinned a notice such as was to be seen on 
most house painter’s entrance gates at that time of the 
year : 

PAPERHANGERS WANTED. 

Several Good Brush Hands. 

Also Improver. 

“ Want a job ? ” asked the man. 

“ Looks as if I’ve got one, don’t it ? ” laughed Arnold 
with the rough pleasantry expected. 

“ Thought you might like a change,” said the man. 

“ Wrong time of the year to change ; almost the end 
of the season,” said Arnold, lowering the handles to the 
gutter. “ I am certain of a winter’s run where I am.” 

“ So are you here if you are any good. We can 
always find something to do in the yard for a young 
chap.” 

“ I’ve had enough of being ‘ the yard dog ’ where 
I am,” said Arnold, picking up the shafts of the hand¬ 
cart again. 


44 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ That’s all right; we’ve got a yard man as it is.” 

“I’ll think about it,” said Arnold, moving away. 
“ Good day.” 

He did think about it, about that and the knowledge 
that he would perform his present duties in constant 
alarm now that he had once thought of someone report¬ 
ing to Bennetta Sard that he was what he was— 
“ Vibert’s traffic manager,” “ Mercury,” “ Lightning,” 
“ The handcart-shover de luxe.” 

Arnold arrived at his destination. It was a preten¬ 
tious villa in Edgbastham, the most superior residential 
suburb of Birmingstow. He went to the tradesmen’s 
entrance and rang the bell. 

“ Want the foreman painter ? ” said the maidservant 
who opened the high gate. “ Go through that door 
and along the passage to the drawing-room.” A suit 
of armour stood on either side of the drawing-room door. 
“ He’s in there,” called the girl. “ Go straight in.” 

Arnold opened the door. Facing it in the room were 
long French windows with a lawn and a border of 
carnations beyond. 

A girl, who might well have sat for a picture of 
Columbine, wearing a pink satin frock all rucked out 
with yielding pleats and glistening frills, was standing on 
a gilt footstool by the window. She was reaching a 
dimpled arm and hand to a canary bird in a silvered 
cage with pearl minarets at the corners. She looked 
the daintiest thing that Arnold had ever seen, this 
Columbine whose hose, whose shoes, were pink ; the 
shade of pink which rose-growers sacrifice the scent in 
roses to obtain. 

Arnold thrilled at sudden sight of her. He quaked 
a little ; he felt his knees weaken. This Columbine 
was Bennetta Sard ! He was in the house of Bennetta 
Sard. The enormity of the catastrophe shook him with 
vibrant inbreathing. Presence of mind came tardily 
to him. She had not seen him ; he yet could escape. 
He stepped back into the hall and drew the polished 
door after him. He leaned against the door between 
the two empty shells of armour. 


RUDYARD STREET 


45 


44 This is her house ; this is her home ; she lives 
here,” he thought in a numbed, confused way. 44 And 
I love her. I know I love her, and I can’t help it. 
Everything is so useless, so hopeless, so unendurable. 
She has everything that I cannot give her. She lives 

in a house like this- But there is no harm in loving 

her ; they cannot stop me loving her ; it cannot matter 
that I love her so long as she never knows.” A touch 
of burlesque tragedy came into his thoughts. 44 And 
I have just got to go on loving her, and there’s all my 
life to live yet.” 

His blood began to thrash at his heart. His flickering 
fingers fastened and unfastened the buttons of his 
coat. His wrists weakened and his limbs relaxed. 
He dropped his hands, dangling them at his sides, and 
leaned more heavily against the door. 

44 She did not see me, but she will find out what I 
am some day, in some manner or other. If I were not a 
coward I should tell her ; but I can’t without letting 
her see how much I love her.” 

44 She did not see me. I must get out of this house. 
I will take that other job on; I can’t come back here.” 

He started from the door, and then turned towards it 
and pressed upon it with his hands outspread. 44 Ben- 
netta Sard,” he whispered, 44 Bennetta Sard, I am sorry, 
but I worship you.” 



Chapter IV 


Arnold did not like drawing this model. As soon as he 
walked round the partition which shielded the door of 
the advanced life class he wished that he had stayed in 
the outer room, which was the draped-life class. This 
model was known as “ Poppy.” The model now 
posing in the “ Draped ” was called “ Terra Vert,” 
from a robe of that colour which she at times carried 
when she sat for the nude. Also he wished he had 
stayed in the “ Draped ” as there was an unoccupied 
easel space next to Bennetta Sard. 

Although Arnold and Bennetta usually worked in 
different rooms, they had opportunities of meeting during 
the quarter of an hour interval when the models rested. 
Also, when the school closed for the night he accom¬ 
panied her to the railway-station and bade her formally 
good-night by the booking-office. She had never 
encouraged him to escort her further ; he, glad and 
jealous of his portion, had not jeopardised his good 
fortune by proffering more attendance than she had 
intimated would give her pleasure. 

Arnold’s humble birth and breeding were betrayed 
to her by many grammatical errors ; but he had not 
that not-to-be-forgiven callow politeness of mind 
which is given to “ one of Nature’s gentlemen.” 
Although she knew he was understood in the school to 
be some kind of mural artist, it did not matter what 
the occasion, she treated him as a man of good 
breeding. It was partly her delicacy and tact in 
wishing him to be spared the chagrin of rebuff by 
people who had less knowledge of him than she had 
which made her dispense with his escort before reaching 

46 


RUDYARD STREET 


47 


the railway platform where she would meet acquaint¬ 
ances. 

He often wondered why during the years of their 
friendship she had asked no pertinent question as to 
the manner of his livelihood, his family, or his social 
circle ; he wondered if this was because, by his not 
referring to these subjects, he made it other than 
polite for her to ask. Always her good breeding made 
him think that he stumbled over the niceties of manners. 
Sometimes he wondered if she knew his status, and was 
tolerant of her trusted esquire. Often he hoped that 
she felt with him that there was an unreality about 
their friendship which carried with it an impression 
of sanctity too delicate to last, and which would be 
hastened to its vanishing by any endeavour to intensify 
or fix its fugitive fairness. 

He asked himself now, as he stood hovering at the 
door of the life class, if he did well not to attempt to 
strengthen by closer companionship his association 
with Bennetta Sard against the time when she should 
learn that he was not of her caste. 

He was undecided whether to return and place an 
easel beside Bennetta and paint a small study of Terra 
Vert, or to complete a sketch which he had commenced 
the previous week of the model he disliked. He saw 
that the model had been given the same pose ; it 
decided him to fetch the half-finished drawing rather 
than waste it. He went for his sketch to see if the 
position which he had occupied before had been taken 
by a fellow-student; he hoped against hope that it was 
so, as if his natural desires had to be placated with 
reason ; but he found that the seat which he had 
occupied was vacant. He remembered now; another 
young man had sat beside him modelling in red wax a 
design for a medallion with the figure in the centre ; 
he was there now. The modeller shot a pellet of wax 
by way of greeting. Arnold screwed up his nose at 
him. 

Arnold selected his crayons and looked at the model, 
but he did not feel inclined to work. There was the 


48 


HAMMER MARKS 


usual quiet, turned from silence by the brushing sound 
of the feather-light movements of charcoal, brush, and 
pencil riding over soft surfaces, and the padding of 
rubber heels stepping back from easels ; but Arnold 
could not concentrate. 

There was something different in himself to-night, 
some restlessness ; but from what cause ? He looked 
round the room. Everything was as usual; the walls 
had not been painted a new colour ; they were cream 
from the high ceiling to the dado, and that was still 
brown. The white cloths sagged down, covering the 
skylights and cutting out the moonlight. 

He looked at the students. There was no one looking 
at him, disturbing him with a sense of being regarded ; 
the room appeared more crowded than it was, owing 
to the easels breaking into so much space ; there was 
no youth or very young man under twenty in the room, 
no student fresh to the life class, sending out to the 
sensitive waves of his embarrassment or self-conscious¬ 
ness ; the master was moving unobtrusively from 
student to student, glancing at their work. The box¬ 
like screen where the model disrobed was in its place ; 
the electric light was good ; the big platform throne 
was against the wall, with men no nearer than two 
feet from it in a sweep making two-thirds of a circle. 
Of course, there was the model’s silly satin and sequin 
dressing-gown at her feet; but she always threw that 
there. Why could not she wear a plain sober one, like 
the others ? 

He made a couple of lines, savagely, to indicate the 
pillar on which she was leaning. She had her back to 
the front of the throne ; her forearms rested on a 
wooden pillar, and her legs splayed a little from where 
her knees clipped together. She had an artificial 
Oriental poppy in the basket plaiting of her black hair, 
and the fine of a thin gold chain sank over her shoulders. 
She wore earrings, big as bangles. 

A man with a black moustache broke the hush by 
asking, “ Will it make any difference to anyone if the 
model takes the flower from her hair ? ” 


RUDYARD STREET 


49 


“ The pendant flashes the flght a bit and attracts 
from the line,” said a dour-faced young man who was 
nearest the wall. 

“ Do you mind removing them ? ” asked the master. 

Raising an arm from the pedestal, she twirled the 
flower from her hair to the throne, and let the locket 
slip to the satin at her feet. Gesture was in her move¬ 
ments ; yet, so good a model was she, her pose was not 
disturbed save for the action of her arm and a ripple 
of the muscles which commanded it. 

“ Why does not someone ask her to unhook the 
curtain rings ? ” asked Arnold of the man beside him. 

“ I think Lake asked for them to be put on for a 
book illustration he’s doing. They worry me,” was the 
answer. 

“ Fools,” thought Arnold. “ Earrings and poppies 
have only a little to do with it. It is the woman herself 
who is disturbing; she has too much personality; 
she does not cease to exist when she holds a pose ! ” 

He continued the subject in his thought while he 
drew mechanically. Why did one take these unreason¬ 
ing likes and dislikes ? Why did he enjoy drawing 
Terra Vert, since she also had personality ? One knew 
it by the dulled savagery of her deep-sunk eyes. Yes, 
but was not hers defensive personality—something to 
protect herself with—whereas this other was a person¬ 
ality to challenge and attack ? If likes and dislikes 
settled down to a question of the manner in which 
personalities met, why did he love Bennetta Sard ? 

The master gave the signal for the interval. The 
model bent skilfully and picked up the kimono. She 
tossed her arms through the wide sleeves, and, with two 
fingers flipping the robe closely about her, became the 
complete woman again. She stepped to the front of 
the throne and sat down on the edge. Expanding her 
shoulders luxuriously, she moved her feet about in 
semi-circles in the margin between her and the easels, 
as if she sat upon a raft and trailed her feet through 
foam. 

“ Look at the make-up she’s got on to-night,” said 
Dh 


50 


HAMMER MARKS 


Arnold’s neighbour. “ It does not matter to me , I 
am using wax ; but I would not do her in oils for her 
earrings, if they were made of gold.^ No wonder we 
have the benefit of her back to-night.” 

“I can’t stand her either,” said Arnold. Why 
does not she go and stretch herself behind her screen 
the same as the others ? ” 

“ You don’t pack Poppy in a box,” said the modeller, 
polishing his tools. “ Anyway, I understand she is 
going to Dublin to rehearse for pantomime next week. 
She gave us the information as an item of interest. 

It was.” „ 

“ I think she is beautiful, but I don’t like her type, 

said Arnold. , 

“ Oh, yes, she makes up well. Look at that yob 
Lake asking her if she will have a cigarette. 

The men were moving about among their pictures, 
criticising them. The man with a black moustache 
came between Arnold’s and his neighbour s chair. 
He swung with a hand on each and inclined his head on 
one side to glance at the wax medallion. ^ 

“ Who says we are not an artistic nation, he 
exclaimed, “ when even cocoa tins are to have orna¬ 
ments on the lids ? ” 

“ Blacking tins,” said another. 

“ That’s no good for Day & Martin’s ; they’ll want 
something more artistic.” 

“Don’t be sarcastic,” said the second speaker. 
“ But who does the figure represent ? ” 

“ Juno,” said the modeller. 

“ No ; that’s why I’m asking you.” 

“ What he is trying to ask,” said the man with the 
black moustache, “is, whom does it represent ? Which 
model did you take it from? We have not seen 
her.” 

“ It is the back view, is it not ? ” said a man with 
red hair, who paused as he was passing. “ Is it meant 
to be of a man or a woman ? ” 

“ Pass the hat round, Brooke, while we have a good 
crowd,” said the modeller. 


RUDYARD STREET 


51 


“ Which is the figure ? ” exclaimed a newcomer. 

A man leaned his chin on the modeller’s shoulder 
and said, “ Turn it round and let me have a 
look.” 

“ Ye gods ! ” exclaimed the modeller. “ Is this an 
art or an infant school ? ” 

A gay laugh went up at this indication that the 
tormented one was nettled. The man with the black 
moustache stooped and looked critically at the medal¬ 
lion. “ An infant school, I should say,” he said. 
Arnold endeavoured to leave the circle, but he was 
hemmed in. 

Lake stood on a chair and looked into the grotto 
of heads. “ The Great Seal of Charles the First warmed 
up in a gas oven,” he said. 

“ You are wrong,” said the modeller. “ When I’ve 
attached your earring it will be a door-knocker.” 

“ I say, Brooke,” said a man on the outside of the 
little crowd, “ Miss Sard was asking for you a minute 
ago.” 

“ Did you tell her I was coming ? ” asked Arnold, 
forcing room to stand up. The men winked and pressed 
round to that side of the crowd. 

“No, I said you were sitting flirting with our model,” 
answered the man. 

“ Silly ass ! ” said Arnold. 

“ What did Miss Sard say ? ” prompted the man with 
the black moustache. 

“ She only asked which was our model to-night,” 
said the man. 

“ Subtle,” said the man with the black moustache, 
speaking under his breath. Arnold heard him, but 
knew that he only referred to the jest. 

“ I put it all right for you, Brooke,” said someone. 
“ I said you were only talking to her.” 

“ Where is Miss Sard ? ” again prompted the man 
with the black moustache. 

“ She has gone home,” came, rather dolefully, the 
reply. 

Arnold saw that it would be useless to try and force 


52 HAMMER MARKS 

his way out. He shrugged his shoulders and sat 
down. 

“ Oh, don’t take it like that, Brooke,” said the man 
with the moustache. “ Be a man. Look up, look up 
and smile. Give him your nice medallion, Barnet. 
Invest him with the Order of the-” 

“ Ye gods l ” exclaimed the modeller. “ Look at 
his eyes. They are as green as parsley.” 

Arnold stood up and gripped the man with the 
moustache by the lapels of his coat. “ What were you 
going to say, Silvercraft? ” he demanded huskily. 

“ Now, don’t start outemeralding the emerald,” 
said Silvercraft quietly. “ I’ve seen you do it before. 
I was merely about to suggest that you should be 
invested with-” 

“ Time ! ” called the master. Arnold sank into his 
chair, and Silvercraft drew in his breath with a brief 
sigh. The students picked their way to their easels ; 
the model was dropping her robe from her wrists flung 
back behind her. 

Arnold rose and, collecting his material, went into 
the “ draped ” class. He was a little surprised to see 
that Bennetta was not at her easel. He crossed over 
to the girl who had been sitting near her and asked if 
Miss Sard was returning. “ Well, she wished me 
good-night,” said the girl. 

Arnold was rather at a loss what to do. Bennetta 
had not shown signs of pique before, but he had never 
previously given her cause. He walked disconsolately 
down to the street. 

Out in the night air, he realised that his unsettled 
state of mind during the evening had been due to a 
desire to be beside Bennetta Sard. He peremptorily 
dismissed all speculation as to the reason for her with¬ 
drawal. He decided to wait until he should meet her 
and then ask if in anything he had been remiss. She 
was not peevish nor jealous, nor yet a girl given to 
perform tragedy for the sake of being petted back to 
comedy and so turning the whole episode to farce, vide 
musical comedies. 


RUDYARD STREET 


53 


He walked a little out of his direct way home that he 
might see his favourite spot of central Birmingstow. 
Newn Street had one beautiful aspect. One looked 
towards the pillared portico which stood out from the 
fa£ade of the rooms of the Society of Music. At early 
night the scene had rakishness to give a semblance of 
happy life to its erstwhile drabness and austerity. 
There had been, and still was, talk of pulling down the 
portico. “ That would be like Birmingstow,” thought 
Arnold. “ Good luck to her motto, ‘ Progress,’ and to 
her two sledge-hammers for a crest.” 

“Was Birmingstow, with all her expensiveness, so 
barren of beauty by reason of the fact that she rose 
in the hour when architecture was at its lowest 
ebb ? Poetic judgment 1 The vengeance of Art on 
Commerce! ” 

“Art crying, ‘Grow great in the hour when I am 
crushed ; to grow great in that hour means that you 
burgeon because of the things and the means which 
crush me. Later, when you succour me and raise me 
up, because you desire a handmaid, I will serve you ; 
but in all your wide streets, your costly buildings, and 
in the squares where the fountains play, I will cry, 
“ Behold the City of Limitations .” And everything you 
make and which I touch, I will touch it only to write 
upon it, “ From the City of Limitations .” Yet because 
you do not know that you step upon my body when you 
kiss my robe I will write and cry the words in the 
language of my chosen.’ ” 

Arnold stood where he would not attract the attention 
of the women of cheetah steps slinking in and out 
among the nightfarers. He stood to watch the aimless 
ones of Birmingstow threading and turning round the 
bases of the foredoomed pillars of the portico. He lost 
himself in noting the wizened courage common to 
the eyes of all these promenaders who would fain be 
debonair. 

“ How they wear the hammer marks as a badge of 
their citizenship,” he thought. “ How in the mass they 
reveal what they can hide as individuals—the staleness 


54 


HAMMER MARKS 


of their ambitions. The seed of their emotions is dry 
from being gathered too long ; if it sprouts it can have 
but a shabby blossoming. Yet in their faces there is 
everything which is fine—courage and honour and the 
faith of hope—but shrunken. Mine the same ! ” He 
shrugged in the Midland manner—as if he itched'. 

“ Born and bred in the City of Limitations. If she 
bore a genius—yes, at length, one out of her womb, not 
one born near her who had crept close to be suckled what 
a makesport he would be for her ! How ruthlessly 
she would put her hammer mark on him before she 
lifted him up/ broken and bloody, for the world to 
see. Would he be great enough not to forgive her in 
his day? With what a different meaning would 
the world reply, ‘ From the City of Limitations ’ 
when she cried, ‘Behold, out of my womb an 
artist—clay of my clay; grime of my grime; 

mine ! ’ ” . 

He felt a gliding touch upon his arm ; it was one o± 

the little sisters of frailty. 

“ Get off,” he said, trying to fling away the hand 
which had tightened. She still clung, babbling of her 
wares. Fearful of her importunity, he drew a coin of 
silver from his pocket. As she grasped it he felt his 
soul sicken and faint; pausing before him was Bennetta 
Sard. 

She was attended by an elderly gentleman, who 
stopped, surprised that she had paused before a sight 
so familiar yet undesirable. Bennetta looked at Arnold 
but a moment, and then passed, leaving him with his 
mind reeling. His heart seemed to drop from his breast 
and then return, fluttering wildly. He remembered, 
at fatal long last, that she had told him on the previous 
night that she was leaving the art school at the interval 
to attend a lecture with her father. What a madman he 
had been not to remember it before and go straight 

home. , 

It must have been obvious to her that he was passing 
money. There was no mistaking the woman’s profes¬ 
sion ; to even a casual examination she was a scented 


RUDYARDSTREET 


55 


% 

prostitute, and Bennetta Sard’s examination, though 
swift, was not casual. 

“ That finishes me off for Bennetta,” he muttered, 
“ and the school, and most things that make life worth 
anything.” 
















f 










* 


\ 








y 








* 





PART II 


CHAPEL GROVE 


Chapter I 

The walls of the Burne-Smith gallery in the Society of 
Music’s room were covered with framed paintings. 
The Exhibition of the Birmingstow Art Society was 
counted a great success. The walls were completely 
hidden by finished paintings ; only in the ante-room 
was a sketch or crayon drawing to be seen. The various 
Birmingstow dailies had done their honest duty by the 
city in their reports ; they had mentioned Birmingstow 
as leading a renaissance. The artist who designed 
the posters had been inspired to place through the 
thumb-hole of the palette one of the hammers from the 
city arms in lieu of brushes. Moreover, the Birming¬ 
stow Art Society had won in the struggle with six other 
local societies to be the first to hold an exhibition after 
the pillared portico had been pulled down and the 
whole building renovated. 

It was the last afternoon of the exhibition, and many 
of the season ticket holders now looked at the pictures 
before looking at the catalogue. It being also Saturday, 
one or two of the laity were there. Altogether there 
were sufficient people in the room to give them a 
pleasant feeling of being interested in the interesting, 
and yet so few that each could see all the others ; a 
man needed not to fear that if he lost himself in critical 
thought before a picture he would be overlooked. 

Had that been so, Sard Eglantine Sard would not have 
been there, for whatever he convinced others of, he 
never hid from himself the fact that he was interested 
in all the arts, and was seen at all art ceremonies, 
because it was necessary for him to be in the “ swim ” 
5 7 


58 


HAMMER MARKS 


with every art set in Birmingstow, whether the art was 
music or painting or acting or writing. 

Such prominence was advertisement which brought 
him pupils, for wherever was ceremony of art in Birming¬ 
stow there was to be found glib poseurs unattached to 
any one of the arts. They were there in the hope of 
being classed as people of culture ; and they were the 
ones he sought. He thought it his duty to seek them ; 
he sought them as a good priest seeks erring souls, 
sought them as his converts to turn their pose into a 
reality ; sought them as the ostrich farmer seeks new 
birds, that their plumage may not be wholly wasted in 
deserts where they moult. 

Professionally he was a violinist and teacher of music. 
By seeking mongrel intellects which sniffed at the skirt 
of Birmingstow culture, patting them until their growls 
became happy barks, and with infinite patience teaching 
them little tricks—by this he was serving art. He was 
honest with himself ; honest enough to admit that since 
these hangers-on were leisured people—children and 
wives of wealthy manufacturers—his services to art 
brought satisfactory remuneration ; but at the same 
time he was honest enough to know that art came 
first with him, for before the pecuniary advantage of a 
pupil gained, there was the advantage of a musician 
gained. He was honest enough not to accept a pupil 
who had no voice or gift for music. If they flickered 
into the candle halo, they felt the attraction of the 
flame, and he wafted them to what he deemed was the 
whitest shining candle—Music. Although he was 
served, they were served, and art was served. Other¬ 
wise he would not have taught, for he was rich enough 
to do without, and his playing brought him fuller 
measure of fame. 

In other arts than music he himself was fond of 
posing ; but when his violin was in his hands he knew 
not any. When he taught he served art; when he 
played he served his soul. And if he did close his eyes 
upon the platform and thrilled as he lifted his bow, and 
if he did sink back when he lowered it, nothing was pose. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


59 


It was not supplying a demand for eccentricity; he had 
not been playing for them. He played in manner 
similar when he had locked the door of his music-room 
and lit the tall candle before a fair woman’s picture ; 
played in manner similar, save that sometimes when he 
ceased he was kneeling. He did not play to that 
cobblestone pavement of faces before him in the hall; 
he played to one who could not hear, trusting she 
might. Genius he had not, but he had memories 
which coloured his music with blood and wine and 
the stain of roses. 

He had very brown eyes which were always in a 
glow as if about to smile, yet never quite smiled even 
when his bps were smiling. 

His lips were smiling now as he stood between two 
picked companions. His back was to the biggest picture 
in the exhibition. Norman de Valing was on his right; 
he was little and pink, with the even pinkness of the 
Christmas tree sugar pig. His eyes also were brown, 
but they were the brown which is shot with yellow and 
suggest quartz. His hair, which showed beneath a 
Homburg hat pulled rather low down to hide baldness, 
was white. He was dressed in the style for men much 
younger than himself, and it made him look older than 
his years. 

Mr. Ben Brown, who stood to the left of Mr. Sard, was 
slight and in no way noticeable ; the colours of his cloth¬ 
ing were those natural to a house-fly. He was usually 
known to be where he was by objectionableness without 
sting when he spoke. Professionally he was a critic, 
and of a rare type in that he was without chivalry in 
his professional capacity. He lived for sugar, and, 
having access to where literary confections, new from 
the oven, were displayed, he invariably chose the best 
to settle on and leave his mark, giving to the people 
who would have bought the impression that the goods 
were not wholesome. 

The three men were looking at the people moving 
from picture to picture. 

“ Tell me who the man with the Raphael face is,” 


60 


HAMMER MARKS 


said de Valing. When he pronounced certain con¬ 
sonants he made a sibilant sound, as if he sipped syrup. 

44 I haven’t seen him before,” said Sard. 

“ He suggests to me a silver lamp,” said de Valing, 
sipping much syrup. 

“ Why silver ? ” asked Sard tranquilly. 

“ Why a lamp ? ” murmured Mr. Ben Brown. 

“ Spirituelle,” said de Valing. 

“ Why not tin ? ” asked Sard. 

“ Why not a soap-dish ? ” questioned Brown. 

“ Oh, why will you jar,” appealed de Valing, the 
syrup giving the last word the sound of 44 char. 

44 Spell it,” said Brown. 

The young man under discussion was attired in a 
manner which showed that he did not shun attention. 
He wore a black lounge suit with no peculiarity of cut, 
but the revers were covered with black silk, which 
transformed the coat to an unusual dinner-jacket. 
His cravat was a stock bow tie worn round an upright 
collar. His hat and dust-coat were in his one hand ; 
he worked the fingers of his other round a catalogue. 
He was speaking to a big man whose sporting clothes 
were worn as neatly as if they were a morning-coat suit. 

De Valing continued to stare. 44 But, Sard, I thought 
you knew everyone,” he said. 44 You are acquainted 
with the man he is talking to ; the one who looks as if he 
has been successful in love and it had soured him 
permanently.” 

44 Mm,” said Sard. 44 That is John Rockby. It is 
his portrait of the lord mayor which they are looking at.” 

44 Shall we step that way ? ” asked de Valing. 

44 You step ; we’ll walk,” said Brown. 44 Although 
I can save you the trouble if you are after the name 
of his tailor; it’s Clarkson’s, telegraphic address, 
4 Theatricalities.’ ” 

44 1 have an intuition,” lisped de Valing, 44 one of 
those psychic rays which reach out and touch with 
inspiration the poet. It tells me that he also is a poet, 
perhaps unknown even to himself ; but I have touched 
diamond dust, and my soul is scared.” 



CHAPEL GROVE 


61 


“ Oh, don’t sugar so much,” said Sard, a trifle 
irritably. “ Remember you have mental diabetes.” 

De Valing turned from shell pink to salmon with 
slow and perfect graduation of complexion. They 
had reached the portrait of the lord mayor, and Sard 
pressed John Rockby’s arm. 

“ Congratulations,” he said. “ The other portraits 
are relegated to a background for yours. No, don’t 
leave your friend ; I only spoke in passing.” 

The young man was drawing on his light dust-coat. 
When he had pulled his hat upon his head he was 
transformed to an average individual. None of the 
others moved. John Rockby, with a little spurt of 
annoyance, made the unavoidable introduction. “ Mr. 
Sard, this is Mr. Brooke.” And then for some reason 
he sighed shortly. 

“ Which of the muses do you serve, Mr. Brooke ? I 
know that you are a priest at one of the altars or you 
would not be here. Singing ? No ; you have a singer’s 
voice, but it is not developed. It’s a great pity. You 
have a voice of the Barticeflini quality, see ! ” He 
turned to Ben Brown. “ You see he shocks the glottis 
when he laughs.” 

“ I apologise,” said Arnold Brooke. 

“ Ha ! ha ! and he has the temperament. It’s always 
the same ; the men who could sing will not try, and those 
who ought never to be heard far from a hawker’s barrow 
one has to struggle with till they are heard on the 
concert platform.” 

“ I do not think I am as musical as a gold-fish,” said 
Arnold. 

“ Ah, and I hoped it was music. You have a voice ; 
and I should know, eh ? I produced Clarence Blowman 
and Nellie Marks. Do you paint much ? ” 

John Rockby bit his thumb ; Arnold showed confusion. 

Sard appealed to John Rockby. “ Does he paint 
much, and is modest ? ” 

The glance of Rockby was cruel rather than cunning, 
yet his words showed kind as he replied briefly, “ Gets 
his living at it; but you will not get him to talk about it.” 


62 


HAMMER MARKS 


De Valing spoke unexpectedly and trippingly, with 
the baby-prattle lisping which always drew attention 
to him when he spoke. “ He blushes, but the poet’s 
eye can see. He is like a pomegranate ; the rind is 
thick, and one has to cut deep ; but, then, one finds 
very beautiful blood.” 

John Rockby looked at Sard Eglantine Sard in 
slight alarm. 

“ I am sorry about all this,” said Ben Brown, with 
mock gravity. “ I am afraid we shall have to introduce 
him now. I was hoping you would have kept silent, 
de Valing. Now there is no occasion to turn toe-pink.” 

Arnold, not having a sense of humour, usually was 
enabled to understand the motive which prompted the 
humour. He was not being amused now; he was 
asking himself again and again, “ Is Mr. Sard Bennetta 
Sard’s father ? Is Mr. Sard Bennetta Sard’s father? ” 

Mr. Sard swept his hand through space to indicate 
de Valing. “ Norman de Valing, the poet,” he 
announced. “ He does not actually belong to the city ; 
he is staying here, adding to his collection of antiques.” 

“ Birmingstow for antiques ? ” asked John Rockby. 

“ Yes,” said Brown. “ They are locked up in the 
factories being copied.” 

Arnold suddenly felt a great radiance beating out 
from within himself ; he saw Bennetta, unattended, 
walking beside the wall of pictures towards him. He 
felt that the radiance must show and shine upon his 
face and startle his companions. 

Two years, and he had not seen her in all that time. 
Oh, the lovable creature ! He wondered which of the 
pictures she favoured with a glance as she came towards 
the group. Again she was a new presentation of herself ; 
she wore chiffon about her shoulders ; about her dress 
were chiffon flowers ; it seemed that she would float 
away. 

De Valing was quoting something about “ the pipe 
for ever dropping honey,” and Ben Brown was inter¬ 
rupting him. Sard Eglantine Sard, facing Arnold, had 
his back to Bennetta. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


63 


She reached and touched his shoulder as she came 
near. “ Daddy,” she said. 

He looked round, smiling. “ Where is your aunt, 
sweetheart ? ” he asked in surprise. 

“ Oh, her head is so bad, daddy, poor thing. She 
said she could not come, and she looked so dreadfully 
pale I wanted to stay, but she said you would be cross— 
not cross, no, she did not say that; she said worried. 
She said you would worry if you waited and we did not 
come. I wonder why she always gets a headache when 
she is going to the theatre ? Do you think she likes 
theatres, or do you think she likes them so much that 
the excitement is too much for her ? I brought her 
ticket; it is such a pity for a seat to be wasted on the 
first night of a Romney Rain play. Will you keep 
them ? ” She handed an envelope to her father. 
“ Thanks, daddy. Now I am ready to have my hand 
shaken off. Bad Benny Brown, how do you do ? Mr. 
de Valing—but I see you so much these days, why 
trouble ? It is Mr. Rockby, isn’t it ? Oh, I have 
forgotten who this is. Father has such an enormous 
collection, you must not blame me.” 

“No, this is a new one. Mr. Brooke, my daughter.” 

The mill-race of Arnold’s emotions made him grateful 
for the opportunity to bow his head. It was her little 
tinted hand which he saw held out for him to touch, 
to take and hold a moment; a moment while its warmth, 
the warmth of magnolia blossom on a southern wall, 
should melt his heart. 

“ This ticket any use to you, Mr. Rockby ? ” asked 
Mr. Sard. 

“ It would have been, but I have booked already 
for Miss Green and myself.” 

“ Mr. Brooke, do you care for the theatre ? Romney 
Rain is putting on his new play in poetic prose, Grapes 
of Tinder . It’s an event. If you would care to make 
one of our party we should be pleased for you to join 
us,” said Mr. Sard. 

“ I should be delighted,” said Arnold, looking neither 
to right nor left. 


64 HAMMER MARKS 


“ We shall see you later then, Mr. Rockby, said Mr. 
Sard. “ Come on, all you people.” 

“ Before we do go,” said Ben Brown, let me have 
some credit for introducing Mr. Rockby to de Valing. 
Get him to let you paint his picture. My commission 
is ten per cent. I suggest a life-size full length. e 
can afford it, since he can afford to have as many books 


published as he writes.” , 

“ Of all the arts I think painting is the one blase. 

I hate blase people. I am sorry,” said de Valing, 
pointing the remark with an apology, and turning o 
Arnold to finish his remarks. 

Arnold abstractedly passed his thumbs under the 
dust-coat and raised the silk lapels until they overlaid 
the outer coat. None knew that he was tense with 
controlled nervousness. With his fingers he drew the 
wings of his bow tie until he made it a flower cupped 
towards de Valing. “ We all have our pet aversions, 
he said nonchalantly. “ I hate vulgarity ; I am sorry. 
He directed his glance and his speech at de Valing. 

John Rockby gave a start of amazement and leaned 
towards Arnold, so closely did he examine him. The 
party began to move down the staircase to the street, 
de Valing ruling conversation with his slippery speech. 

“ You remind me very much of a man I once knew, 
he was saying, “ your accent as well as your appearance. 
He used to say that he hated vulgarity, and he was the 
kind of person who would take his rings off and put 
them beside his soup plate. He thinks he is very caustic, 
and on one occasion he tried to be caustic with me. My 
great friend, Lord Tilting, whom I lived with for so 
many years, had a financial loss, and I tried to reinstate 
him by establishing a business in a very smart part of 
London. It is not necessary to tell you what the business 
was, but of course I had nothing to do with it. The de 
Valings have never been in trade. The family motto 
is ‘ Death if not Honour.’ ” 

They were traversing a by-street congested with a 
Saturday evening crowd, and de Valing shrank occasion¬ 
ally, as if from contamination. The party was moving 


CHAPEL GROVE 


65 


in a group close around Bennetta. De Valing continued, 
“ When this person saw me at an ‘ at home ’ of Lady- 
Bar owner’s—he is Lord Bar owner’s secretary, by the 
way ; I do not know how he obtained the position ; I 
think I once heard him say that his aunt was distantly 
related to Eddie Barowner—Lord Barowner, that is— 
this person said to me, and there were so many of my 
friends present, 4 Tell me, do you live over the shop ? ’ 
I did not show any feeling ; that pride and fortitude which 
is given to the de Valings upheld me. I merely treated 
him as a servant and said, 4 Breezely, that is your 
forebears coming out in you.’ ” 

This story being directed to Arnold, it was left to him 

to make comment. 44 And—er-” Arnold began. 

44 Were you living over the shop ? ” 

De Valing groaned. 44 Oh, you can have no idea of 
the circles I move in ! ” 

44 You must not take de Valing too flippantly,” said 
Ben Brown. 44 He is a superb example of 4 It is blood 
that tells and silence is golden.’ ” 

They were nearing the theatre. 

44 What an unpleasant man that must have been,” 
remarked Bennetta, with a smile somewhere in her 
kindness. 

44 Of course,” said de Valing succulently, 44 one ignores 
that class of person. They do not understand a subtle 
intellect. Wit is wasted on them. He is a fearful 
liar, and I remember on one occasion looking under a 
table where we sat talking, and he asked what I was 
looking for. I said, 4 1 am looking for the Spirit of 
Truth,’ and this outrageous liar, this fearful liar, said, 
4 1 am he.’ Just an example, Mr. Brooke.” De Valing 
tossed his hand in the air as if it had held the idea or a 
carrier pigeon which he released for its journey. 

44 Quite wasted,” agreed Arnold. 44 And did you 
ever find the Spirit of Truth, Mr. de Valing ? ” 

Arnold felt a little tug from the finger and thumb on 
the lobe of his ear. He was crossing the entrance hall 
of the theatre. He turned and found that Sard Eglan¬ 
tine Sard was the offender, but that he was smiling. 

Eh 




66 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ Now let him win for a round or two,” said Mr. Sard 
privily. 

“ Very good, sir,” said Arnold. 

Sard tweaked his ear again at the moment when de 

Valing looked round. ,., -> 35 

“ Wondering if you could make a silk purse out ol it. 

he asked rudely. . , n 

Arnold felt his skin thicken as it were to flannel. It 
was well that Sard had made the request. His whole 
body seemed dulled to cotton-wool with mortification. 

“ When the rapier fails, the flat iron, „said -Ben 
Brown. “ The point is yours, Mr. Brooke. 

The interior of the Dawn Theatre pleased Arnold. 

It was not flaunting nor ornate, as were the older Birm- 
ingstow theatres. There were no gilded nor enamelled 
carvings. The intended suggestion of the interior of a 
Greek temple was gained by simple pillars m haH-round 
dividing the walls into panels, which were painted a deep 
and a deeper blue to suggest a surfless sea and doudless 
sky as seen from between the pillars. The pillars had 
simple Ionic caps. The ceding was plain. The 
proscenium was no more lavish than the walls. There 
were fewer pillars at that end, and a plain curtain o 
purple hung between them, as if beyond was the altar 
and the statue of the goddess. . 

The audience was not so pleasing to Arnold, iney 
seemed constrained by feeling a weight of poetic-prose 
tragedy yet to come. They had the voices and manner¬ 
isms of disciplinarians. They did not appear to be 
happy. They were negative in the impression they 
created. Where was the abandonment? The theatre 
felt like a place of rituals, the place of ceremonies for 
a Birmingstow circle of one of the fine arts. Arnold 
assumed that this theatre, with its company of players 
and its selection of plays, could easily become an acquired 
taste entailing a friendly, almost homely, interest m its 
hardworking ladies and gentlemen of the stage and its 
meek audience, who came regularly play by play. 

But where was the far horizon ? In every face which 
was turned toward the gangway as he entered Arnold 



CHAPEL GROVE 


67 


saw a preparedness to be pleased by the arrival of a 
customary patron whose features had become familiar. 
He saw that they were all members of a little friendly- 
art-and-diffident society, eager to be led but needing 
painfully to be told whither. They were those who, 
lacking the sensitive body of art-endeavour, wore, in 
effort to achieve its semblance, the beautiful robe of 
art-appreciation cut to the pattern which the fashion 
of the moment dictated. They were vain of being a 
minority ; they were proud and sure of their intelligence ; 
they were those who chastely appreciated original 
crudities. 

Arnold stood still near the door. He wondered what 
would have happened had he come here among them 
straight from a day’s work. He wondered if these 
thought the things which he thought, or how they 
thought, and why he did not think or act or love like a 
man of his station. 

He sighed. “ Although I may never paint a picture 
which will satisfy me,” he thought, “ art has given me 
this—myself that is all myself—but is that the gift of 
art or isolation ? Perhaps my mother was right; I 
think too much. I am too much alone. I will acquire 
friends now that I have the opportunity. I will cease 
to look at the far horizon; the horizon cannot be 
reached, it shifts away. 

“ Mr. Brooke, why don’t you come down to your seat ? 
They have sent me back for you. That fool de Valing 
has annoyed you ? ” Ben Brown had returned and 
was speaking. 

“ Not in the least; I think he is just a fussy old maid. 
I was looking at the theatre, as I have not been in here 
before,” said Arnold. “ But why was he so rude to me ? 
At first he was the other extreme—gush.” 

“ The reason was obvious ; Miss Sard smiled very 
charmingly upon you when you were introduced.” 

“ Indeed,” said Arnold. “ But what has that to do 
with it ? ” 

“ De Valing is paying attentions to Miss Sard. You 
must put it down to love,” said Brown whimsically. 


68 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ But he is an old man. It’s an impossibility. ^ Oh, 
I see you are jesting again ; you supposed I admire 
Miss Sard. Of course I do.” 

“No, I was serious.” 

“ What does—her father say in the matter ? ” asked 
Arnold. He had been about to say, What does she 
say in the matter ? ” 

“ Well, it looks to me as if Mr. Sard favours his suit; 
otherwise he would not play you off against him to bring 
him to the point.” 

“ How do you know that he intends to do that ? ” 
asked Arnold, rather coldly. 

“ He has given you the seat next to Miss Sard, and 
you had better get to it before the curtain goes up. I 
must get to my seat; I’m dramatic critic for the 
Birmingstow Watcher. Oh, you didn’t know. I should 
prefer to sit in the gallery, really ; there are sure to be 
mountains in the first scene, and I am told that as a 
rule from the gallery one may see men in bowler hats 
walking behind the mountains.” 

“ Do you put things like that in your critiques ? ” 
asked Arnold innocently. 

“ Not over my initials,” said Brown, horrified. “ Rom¬ 
ney Rain is a friend of mine. To know Romney Rain 
is to be in with the people that matter ; to know me is 
to get not unimpartial criticisms. If Sard is going to 
adopt you, you do well to recognise at the commence¬ 
ment that we are honest in dishonesty. What I say 
hurts no one ; what I write matters. Everything works 
like a home-made sewing machine—‘ Clique ! Clique ! 
Clique ! ’ ” 

Arnold pretended to understand. The theatre was 
half empty. He wondered what had been meant by 
“ a new play by Romney Rain being an event.” He 
turned to Ben Brown again. It had already struck 
him that one had to turn to the critic for information 
as he never appeared to be facing any one. “ This 
theatre, does it pay ? ” 

“ What does it matter ? It is run by a large-spirited 
gentleman as a charity to Birmingstow’s intelligence.” 


CHAPEL GROVE 


69 


“ But will he fling pearls for ever since they are so 
disregarded ? ” 

“ Why should he not ? There are a few ropes of 
pearls left unflung and a great number of continually 
and highly critical persons living in Birmingstow.” 

“ I don’t know why he should or should not; I do 
not know the gentleman. I only wondered if his 
generosity was based on his inner grace or a misunder¬ 
standing of his townsmen.” 

A thin trumpet-blast shivered with silver cadences 
from beyond the purple curtain ; it was the sign that 
the play was about to commence. 

“ Shu—shu ! ” The waiting audience—waiting for 
an opportunity to say this—sprang upon the pretext. 
The light dropped through twilight to an early morning 
darkness as the two men walked down to their seats, 
Ben Brown emitting a louder “ Shu—shu ! ” than 
anyone. As they reached their seats the curtain trem¬ 
bled to rise. All of the obedient throng leaned yearningly 
forward with their eyes aiming at the very centre of the 
stage ; they held their breaths till the light turned com¬ 
pletely to blackness, then they loosed their breaths ; 
they had done their duty. They began to fumble and 
sort out their gloves and furs and chocolates. Above 
the sound of their mousy restlessness the curtain was 
heard to swish away, but nothing was seen, only a 
heavier press of darkness hurt the eyes of those who 
stared. 

An awed voice near Arnold whispered, “ Isn’t it 
weird ? ” 

“ Shu—shu ! ” said Brown. “ They are going to 
begin ; I can hear the prompter.” But no sound came 
from the stage. The cheated audience perforce began 
to hold their breaths again. 

“ It is going to be a tragedy ? ” the awed voice made 
whisper. 

“ It is a tragedy,” replied a tense voice, also 
a female’s. “ This scene is called ‘ The Valley of 
Stars.’ ” 

Arnold stared until he thought he imagined specks 


70 HAMMER MARKS 

of gold light about the place where he suspected the 
stage should be. He closed his eyes to relieve them of 
strain. He was reminded of going into his mother s 
coal-cellar when it was too dark to see which corner the 
slack was in. After a minute he opened his eyes , 
nothing was changed. He wondered if the electric 
light had failed. He felt the dramatic critic at his side 
shake as if with private laughter. Someone sneezed, 
but Arnold concluded it was a member ot the 

audience. _ . . _ 

The oppressive darkness began to lose force in com¬ 
parison to the oppressive stillness and silence. H.e 
thought it must be even worse for the girls who had m 
their mouths chocolates which they feared to masticate 
lest they made a sound. 

The little specks of light were coming before his eyes 
again ; he understood ; it was not hallucination , they 
were mites of tinfoil catching inconsiderable light thrown 
up the concave background of the stage, making stars 
in the Valley of Stars. His ears became accustomed to 
the silence. The stage began to grow light as the stage 
dawn broke falteringly. 

The stage grew bright. The scene depicted was m 
some way peculiar ; the mountains in the valley were 
pointed and fairly sharp, as if they had not been climbed 
on or used much. No two of them were the same 
triangle. They were in two rows or ranges, one behind 
the other. Of the back row, no two were the same 
colour ; one was tangerine, another emerald, another 
heliotrope; the mountains in the front were black 
and white alternately, with the exception of the 
third from the right—that was of black and white 

squares. . , , . , 

“ Won-der-ful,” whispered the awed voice behind 

the middle of the stage was a wedge-shaped slab 
of rock painted in natural colours, and upon it lay an 
actress. She was sleeping. She wore a diadem which 
fitted closely round her brows. It was made from a 
bright and neat tin funnel fretted with holes. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


71 


She opened her eyes and raised an arm, and began 
to declaim : 

“Murky, unmindful dawn now comes, 

Challenging the ready voiced cock 
With quiet music. Stemmed with light 
She lifts her lance of lily shine. 

Unmindful dawn, how long ere yet 

The brooding forethought of another day-” 

“ After all,” thought Arnold, “ I am sitting beside 
Bennetta Sard.” 


Chapter II 

Arnold laughed, perhaps a little too loudly for the 
occasion and the company, and certainly more gener¬ 
ously than sufficed the jest; but then, he laughed 
rather because he was happy than because Ben Brown 
was amusing. He had been spending a week-end at the 
home of Bennetta Sard. True, Norman de Valing 
had been a fellow-guest, but, if anything, that only 
gave him cause for abandon, and taught him that to the 
desperate all odds are even chances. 

He was desperate, not in endeavour to win the love 
of Bennetta, but to retain his close association with her 
to the end that she might be turned from an admiration 
which she had for Norman de Valing. He doubted 
if any woman, and above all one so young as Bennetta 
and bred as she had been, could understand the 
decadence of de Valing. He had tried to tell her—tell 
her that de Valing was not to be rated at his own valu¬ 
ation. He had said, “ De Valing is a newt living in 
a drain, who thinks he is not slate colour but a gorgeous 
lizard because the two are members of one family. 
True, he has a golden underside, but he drags it in the 
mud.” And Bennetta, if she had understood or not, 
had said, “ Do not you begin to cover up jealousy with 
wit; I am tired of clever people. Ben Brown says that 
‘ Wit is a twin, and was born a day old, so that spleen 
should not be the elder brother.’ ” 

Those week-ends which Arnold spent as a guest of 
Sard Eglantine Sard were times of ecstasy—emotional 
and mental ecstasy—although they entailed companion¬ 
ship with Norman de Valing. 

And so Arnold, whose lack of a sense of humour was 
replaced by a sense of the ridiculous, was feeling his 
youth for the first time. It was a pleasant occupation 

72 


CHAPEL GROVE 


73 


to speculate upon one’s neighbours in the battue of 
talent driven towards the cloakroom of the Corinthian 
Room of the Regal Hotel (the grandest room of 
the grandest hotel of Birmingstow, where the Quest 
Association was holding a special evening. The voice 
of the beaters and drivers were heard up the elaborate 
staircase, crying, “ Please put all your things on one 
hook. Please put all your things on one hook.” Ben 
Brown had just said to Arnold, “ —and there is another 
good specimen ; the George Robey dame, something 
Eyebrow ! I shouldn’t be surprised if she was a painter 
of the Oxo-Cubist School; thins the paint with beef tea.” 
So Arnold laughed. 

De Valing, who was near, murmured to Miss Sard, 
“ I should like to see that young man walk into a room 
where there were several gentlemen and laugh as he 
does now. It would be worth a great deal to see the 
expression on their faces.” 

Bennetta said, “ Your voice carries, Mr. de Valing.” 
De Valing bowed slightly. 

“ Yes,” he admitted, “ it comes from reading my 
poems aloud ; I read rather well. One has to read one’s 
poems at the moment of writing to judge the euphony, 
lest the inspiration of the moment betrays the artist to 
the craftsman. I have an original idea to-” 

Arnold turned his head over his shoulder and said, 
“ According to statistics, if all your original ideas were 
placed end to end they would reach nearly round your 
hat brim, and you don’t take a very large size.” 

“ Brown,” said de Valing, “ don’t let him get out of 
hand in public.” 

On these special nights the Quest Association imported 
into the city a poet or writer of recognised genius that 
he might lecture to the literary set, which for the occasion 
made overtures to others of the cultural societies of the 
city, and invited their principal lights to shine at the 
gathering. The poet for this evening was Blaise Fennel, 
whose famous Songs of Every Day bring up pictures of 
simple lives lived and loved in a fragrant house of 
rosewood. 



74 


HAMMER MARKS 


The evening began at seven o’clock with refreshments 
in the Diamond Room, where for an hour those who had 
axes to grind ground them. It was a blessed hour for 
Arnold. He was left with Bennetta at a little table 
with a hammered copper surface, to which coffee and 
sandwiches and confections were brought. Ben Brown 
and Mr. Sard and Norman de Valing were seen gliding 
and lingering, and laughing and gliding on again, among 
the many whom they knew, and ever and again they 
returned, separately or in trio, to the quiet table in the 
alcove where Arnold and Bennetta sat. 

The little table was directly facing the aisle between 
the tables, where members and guests were constantly 
rising and bowing and exchanging cards or Press cuttings. 
Bennetta and Arnold watched the crowd in silence. 

To Arnold it appeared that Birmingstow culture 
developed a trombone blatancy of voice, a chanticleer 
strut, and a flow of speech which amounted to verbosity. 
Not that all the guests were thus inflated, but there 
were so many who swelled and swelled in their orbits 
of murky brightness that they eclipsed the more steadily 
shining moons, not with a brighter radiance, but because 
they thrust their bulks into the foreground. 

“ I am becoming depressed,” said Bennetta suddenly. 
“ Find something amusing to say.” 

“ Have I been very remiss ? ” asked Arnold humbly. 
“ Shall I simulate inspiration—start up from the table 
and rush up and down Mincing Lane so that they will 
think that I am Blaise Fennel ? ” He indicated as 
Mincing Lane the aisle along which de Valing was pick¬ 
ing his delicate way. “ Which is Blaise Fennel ? ” 

“ I don’t know. Suppose we start a game called 
£ Pick the Poet.’ ” 

“ Pleasure,” said Arnold. “ How do you play it ? ” 
“ Pick the Poet,” said Bennetta dogmatically, “ or 
‘ Impatience,’ as it is called, is a simple enough game 

It can be played by one person-” 

“ Oh ! ” said Arnold, “ but it is better with two, 
isn’t it? Do try and remember if the book of rules 
said that, Miss Sard.” 



CHAPEL GROVE 


75 


“ It may also be played by two or more,” said 
Bennetta. 

“ Oh, no,” said Arnold decidedly, “ not more than 
two ; you were thinking of bezique.” 

“ Of course it is better with no more than two,” she 
replied. “ All that is required for the game is a large 
room in which are kept rolling some two hundred 
representatives of a great city’s interest in the arts ; 

among these is introduced a poet of the first water- 

I don’t think I have that quite correct.” 

“ Yes, water will do for a poet.” 

“ We will be on the safe side and say genius. Picking 
the Poet consists of guessing which one is the genius. 
It sounds simple ; try it here in Birmingstow, where 
there are so many who might be the one. You may 
have first go, but don’t pick the aesthete whom father 
is speaking to. Father looks as if he were quoting, 
‘No one but God and I knows what is in my heart.’ 
The aesthete is the organist at the cathedral and happens 
to be the son of our butcher also. Father is grumbling 
about to-morrow’s joint.” 

“ Wait a minute,” said Arnold. “ I must not play 
haphazard. You see that big shirt-front of a man who 
is talking in C sharp ? That cannot be Blaise Fennel 
or half the men present are Blaise Fennels. ‘ Fennel 
for fragrance, in leaf and seed,’ said de Valing. That 
maidenly fancy does not help much.” 

“ Look for the man who is being deferred to most,” 
said Bennetta. 

“ No one is being deferred to or deferring to anyone, 
unless it is that little man who has knuckled under to 
the shirt-front. You will be sandbagged immediately 
if you go along that trail.” 

“ Then I shall look for someone strikingly handsome 
and intelligent.” 

“ Need I stand more in the light ? I am so comfort¬ 
able sitting here. Do you think he is one of that 
quartette of big fame hunters winding their intellectual 
horns ? Do you know what he looks like ? ” 

“ No. I asked Ben Brown, and he didn’t know.” 



76 


HAMMER MARKS 


“You say * Ben Brown,’ and he isn’t much older than 
I am,” exclaimed Arnold. “ Why, then, do you always 
call me Mr. Brooke ? ” 

“ I respect you more.” 

A waiter came to refill cups with coffee. When he 
had gone, Arnold drew down a great leaf of the palm 
behind him so that his face was in shadow. 

“ Miss Sard,” he said impulsively, “ I wish I had the 
gift of being able to express myself like that de Valing 
man—no, not like him—just to say what I mean and 
what I feel. You once saw me giving money to an 
unnamable woman in Newn Street; now you say you 
respect me ! ” 

His hand lay beside hers upon the cloth. She out¬ 
stretched a little finger so that it touched a vein upon his 
hand. “You have put that unfortunately,” she said, 
“ and you have shaded your face : but it does not matter. 
When I saw you then your face was in the fight, and it 
made explanation unnecessary. The explanation is 
probably simple, but I do not wish to know it. When I 
have known anyone several years, as I had known you 
then, and I am told that that person has done something 
which does not fit in with all I know about him, I say, 
not that I have misread him, but that there is some 
explanation ; that I have not all the pieces of the puzzle.” 

“ There are not many women like you, Miss Sard,” 
he said simply. 

“ Thank you,” she said gravely. 

“ You deserve to be mated with a good man.” He 
loosed the great palm-leaf, and it shot up, fanning a 
moment while he spoke and crossing him with palmate 
shadows. “ Norman de Valing is not that man. I 
do not speak in envy nor jealousy. I speak because in 
this I am worthy of your respect. He is only a travesty 
of a lover. I am not a lover ; so in that I am no travesty; 
yet I am a travesty, a charlatan, a humbug in many 
things. I am only-” 

“ Norman de Valing is a poet of merit. I do not 
like you to speak like this of him.” 

“ I cannot judge if he be a poet or merely a maker of 


CHAPEL GROVE 


77 


verse. My wares are pictures, and I cannot judge his. 
But there is nothing in his life so sacred that he could 
not quip about it. You are good, and he is only a 
travesty of goodness. Do not think that I am attempt¬ 
ing to lower him in your esteem because I wish to stand 
higher. I am pleading for you.” 

“ If you are struggling to say that he is not a gentle¬ 
man,” said Bennetta, 44 he has all the seemliness of one, 
and he comes of a good family.” 

“ There again I cannot judge. I admit he has the 
manners of a gentlewoman ? My blood is plebeian ; I 
cannot judge his. But this I know: you are too good 
for him, and yet you are not too good for many men. 
I blunder. It is my curse that I have not words, but 
only feelings, feelings, feelings ! ” 

44 That is not a curse. He is a poor artist who has 
to write beneath his picture, 4 This is a church.’ ” 
Arnold leaned towards her. “ You mean,” he asked, 
44 that when he says, 4 This is love,’ 4 This is poetry,’ 

4 This is breeding,’ ‘ This is-’ ” 

44 Do not talk about it any more,” she interrupted. 
44 When we sat down I said that I was depressed. I 
think it is being among all these people that makes me 
feel that father is right to be disappointed in me for 
not having achieved something. I know that he feels 
it that I have no special gift for music or anything. 
He once said to me, 4 What is the use of training you ? 
I could make you technically perfect, but you would be 
a poor advertisement for me.” 

44 But,” remonstrated Arnold, 44 you gave promise of 
being an artist when we used to sit on those silly little 
seats at the art school.” 

44 Yes,” responded Bennetta with languor, 44 1 paint 
dicky-birds and pretty sea-shells now. I can sing and 
play an instrument or two like that. I act in amateur 
theatricals and write sonnets to 4 A Quiet Garden ’ like 
that. That is not what father wants ; that is not 
what would satisfy the desire which all this gives 
me.” 

44 There is always something which a woman like you 



78 


HAMMER MARKS 


can do for art,” said Arnold, his voice deepening its tone. 
“You can be the inspiration.” 

“ Yes, I have thought of that,” said Bennetta gravely, 
and then laughed with slight mirth. “ Do not begin to 
call me woman yet or I shall have to do my ideas on 
top and wear my sentiments long.” 

“ What did you mean when you said all this depresses 
you ? All which ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ A festival of talent like this,” she said, flinging him 
a glance. “ Everyone here has done something, or is 
doing something, for art. They paint, they write, they 
sing, they act, they play—were you attempting sarcasm? ” 
“ No. I judge that the majority of these people 
tossed up, and tossed up to decide if they should splash 
about in the arts or church work, the arts or politics, 
and the arts were unfortunate. I judge that the 
minority manage to squeeze a living from it. Seeing 
them separately, I hold that each carries his banner 
so that passers-by may bend their glance upon the 
standard-bearer rather than the standard. Seeing them 
muster, to me there is no question but that by waving 
their banners so violently to attract attention they tear 
the mottos written on them. Yes, I know; you are 
going to say that any man can be a cynic ; that it is 
easy to pull down but difficult to build ; but see. In 
this room are most of the Knights of Birmingstow 
culture, and also in this room is—Blaise Fennel, the 
sweetest English singer ; and listen to the Petticoat 
Market hubbub. To ask where is the reverence is to 
ask what is the merit of the artists.” 

“ This sounds like spleenishness,” said Bennetta. 
“ Have you offered a picture to the Birmingstow Art 
Gallery and they have refused it ? ” 

“ No, I haven’t! ” he said. “ But I love this city. 
I was born in her grime and her filth and her ugliness. 
One has to be born of her to love her ; for unless one 
loves her because of her work-stricken features, which 
were those he knew best when his nature was tender, 
he cannot be expected to admire her face when he sees it 
painted like that of an acting woman in a penny gaff. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


79 


And because I love her, I so long for her to have one 
of her children born a genius who could paint her picture. 
One who loved her although he knew she would break 
him with iron before the paint was dry.” 

“You are said to be an artist,” said Bennetta, looking 
down the room. “ You are her son. I do not know 
anything about your work beyond those little pictures 
which you gave father. Has it any importance in 
your life ? ” 

“It is the only thing which points my direction to 
happiness. Always it points to happiness ; whether 
that happiness lies in the work itself, or in hope of fame, 
or in worthiness to love.” 

“ You are a mystery in some things. You belong to 
none of the societies. You may sell your work by 
private contract, but we never see it. Why do you not, 
as father wishes, hold an exhibition ? Talk it over with 
him again. I know there are questions of expense, but 
—talk it over with father again. You know the interest 
we can arouse among these I-design-my-own-door- 
knocker people.” She stretched her hand as if in 
mock blessing towards the crowd. She gave a little 
gasp of surprise. “ Look ! Look at the man who is 
coming down Mincing Lane.” 

Arnold looked. A man, who might have passed 
unnoticed in the street but stood out startlingly in this 
company, had worked his way through the press at the 
far end of the aisle. There was nothing eccentric about 
him, but he looked pitifully out of place. He had on 
a long, worn, white macintosh, with its collar fastened 
close under his chin ; below it showed the turn-ups of 
a pair of flannel trousers. He wore plimsoles on his 
feet, and neither wore nor carried a hat. He was not 
older than twenty-five years. He was tall, and broad 
of shoulder, but his macintosh flapped upon him as he 
walked. His hair was red with an orange redness, and 
diamonded with raindrops. His skin was white, save 
where upon his cheek-bones were blushes of carmine, 
as if either excitement had varied his natural paleness, 
or as if consumption knew him well. 


80 


HAMMER MARKS 


His manner of progress was strange. He made 
detour for none. But once or twice, when he passed 
between two people conversing, he turned his head and 
looked at one or other of them. He paused as each 
few steps brought him between two tables, and looked 
down at the food in the silver baskets, and once he 
swayed his head a little, as if he criticised the aroma of 
steaming coffee which was near. 

Arnold wondered what would happen when he 
reached the palm, since it was the extreme end of Mincing 
Lane ; if he would turn and retrace his steps. As the 
man came near, the raindrops in his hair ceased to wink 
with white flashes. He came close to the end table and 
looked down at the silver baskets. He ground his hands 
in the linings of his pockets. He drew a hand from his 
pocket and passed it among his hair. “ It is only water,” 
he said, speaking to himself. “ Rain.” 

Arnold looked round the room. Sard and his two 
principal friends were engaged in a laughing conversa¬ 
tion with friends near the door ; one or two guests were 
looking at the new-comer, but they turned their glances 
after a moment or two. The two carmine spots on the 
man’s cheeks were suddenly extinguished. He lowered 
his eyelids ; when he lifted them again he was looking 
at Bennetta Sard. 

“ Pardon, madam, but may I sit at your table ? ” he 
asked. “ There will be some time to wait yet.” 

“ Certainly,” she said slowly, retaining with her own 
glance the glance which the man had seemed to place 
upon her. 

“ Thank you, madam,” he said, but he did not move. 
“ Pardon, madam, but are you a native of Birming- 
stow ? ” 

“ Yes,” she said. 

Two great tears gathered on his lashes. He seemed 
unconscious of them. They overflowed, and were 
followed by others, and the two bright spots appeared 
upon his cheek again. 

“ Won’t you sit down ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ When madam will cease to ask me to look at her,” 


CHAPEL GROVE 


81 


he said. Bennetta started. “ Thank you, madam,” 
he said, and took the seat behind the palm. 

“ I think that I should like more coffee,” said 
Benetta. “ Will you attract the waiter’s attention.” 

Arnold snapped his fingers. A waiter started to come 
towards him, but was deterred for a moment by a woman 
in lemon satin romaine. “ Shall you order at the same 
time, sir,” asked Arnold. 

“ I have not come to steal a meal,” said the man. 
“ I have come to see Blaise Fennel.” 

“ Surely there can be no question of stealing ; we are 
guests,” said Bennetta gently. 

“ I am not a guest. I was refused admission. I 
waited until both stewards went to open the door of the 
mayor’s car before the chauffeur. Then I managed 
to get in.” 

“ Can we do anything for you ? ” asked Bennetta. 

“ Yes, madam. Do not let the aroma of hot coffee 
come near me.” 

The waiter reached the table. 

“ Would you clear the table, please ? ” she said. 
The waiter lifted the silver trays and bore them away. 

“ You admire Blaise Fennel ? ” asked Bennetta then. 

“ More than I do any of our poets,” answered the 
man. “ He is the most human. His fault is that, being 
conscious of his dexterity, he shows it; otherwise he 
would have genius. The man who can throw knives in a 
pattern round his subject is truly great, yet not so great 
as he who can, but does not.” 

“You yourself write ? ” asked Bennetta. “ Have I 
seen anything of yours anywhere ? ” 

As if by magical control of his blood the two carmine 
blushes lapsed for a moment from the man’s cheek. 
He shook his head. 

Mr. Sard and de Valing came to the table. “ It is 
time we found a seat,” said Mr. Sard. 

Arnold and Bennetta rose. 

“ Good-night, sir,” said Arnold to the red-haired man. 

“ I have never called a man ‘sir 5 in my life,” pro¬ 
claimed de Valing. 

Fh 


82 


HAMMER MARKS 


Arnold and Bennetta looked swiftly at the unbidden 
guest He had not blanched at the remark. He still 
sat gazing before him as if through a narrow gateway at 

a horizonless vista. . , 

A number of guests were already seated in tne 
Corinthian Room when Arnold entered. An elderly 
gentleman, bald and with a great beard, and another 
elderly gentleman, clean-shaven and with quantities oi 
hair sat upon the platform, and between them sat the 
slightly built man to whom the ‘ shirt-front had been 
talking. The little man was evidently Blaise Fennel— 
the thrush among the chanticleers. 

As Arnold stood in the doorway the man with the red 
hair walked past into the room. De Valing gave a 
little exclamation of refined horror. 

“ What is the matter ? ” asked Bennetta. 

“ Oh ! ” exclaimed de Valing, rubbing his cuff with 
his handkerchief. “ He touched me as he passed.” 

The man walked before the platform and directed a 
glance at Blaise Fennel, who was arranging notes. He 
did not check his steps, but arrived at a pillar, where 

Jig ]_0£tH6(l* 

Sard and those with him chose seats not far from the 
pillar. De Valing was seated next to Bennetta ; Ben 
Brown was at the end of a row of chairs. Arnold sat 
behind him, near to the red-haired man. There was a 
chair left vacant for the man, but he remained standing. 
Blaise Fennel rose and began to speak, and from that 
moment the man’s glance did not turn from him, but 
at times it developed distance and then restored its 
range to the speaker’s face, as if the man were asking 
questions of himself anent Blaise Fennel and answering 
them ; or as if he asked the same question many times, 
and each time found a different answer. 

The audience listened silently to the compelling 
beauty of the essayist’s words. Pearl phrases were 
sown about the essay, but they were all as solitaires to 
fasten the shimmering garment of his argument rather 
than ornaments to make it unnecessarily fine. When 
the poem of his prose was about to become too fraught 


CHAPEL GROVE 


83 


with imagery and phantasy he rescued it with an almost 
trite remark ; as when he said, “ Can the successful man 
teach us ideals ? He can but show us that his crown is 
cut from a single gem and muffed with ermine so that it 
rests softly. Can the failure teach us ideals ? To him 
despair is rain along the three hundred and sixty odd 
hills of the year ; he can show us only that sunshine is 
good.” 

Arnold watched the red-haired man throughout 
Blaise Fennel’s speech. He doubted that the man 
heeded a word that was spoken. He surmised that he 
kept his face towards the speaker and asked and 
answered, and asked and answered continually the 
one question. “ What was the question ? ” wondered 
Arnold. 

Blaise Fennel ceased speaking. There followed 
speeches and seconding speeches. Members of the 
audience asked permission to speak, basing their claim 
to speak on various performances which they had given 
in the world of letters. They spoke, and the reporters 
were kept busy. The glance of the red-haired man 
remained now upon the face of Blaise Fennel, for the 
question seemed answered. 

The audience rustled and rose. The larger moons of 
Birmingstow culture arranged themselves before the 
platform, to be acknowledged by the lesser lights as they 
fizzled out. Mr. Fennel was kept hemmed back in one 
corner of the platform by them. Either he was modest, 
and used them as a bodyguard, or he had been pushed 
where he was so that he might not outshine. He 
seemed content. 

The hall was half empty when the red-haired man 
moved from the pillar. He walked in direct fine towards 
the poet. His face was alarming in its intentness. 
The colour had fled his cheeks. His hand was 
thrust in the breast of his macintosh, as if he clutched 
a weapon. He approached the row of guards and 
attempted to pass between two of them—one was the 
“ shirt-front ” man. 

The two guards closed in and blocked the opening 


84 


HAMMER MARKS 


that had been between them. The red-haired man did 
not look at them. He made a side-step before the 
shirt-front and endeavoured to pass, but was checked 
again. 

As if ordinary emotions came to him tardily, the 
red-haired man turned his glance upon the guard. A 
piteous expression sagged his features. He began to 
speak in a voice which was tremulous and weak in 
plaint. “ I want to speak to Mr. Fennel. I want to 
ask him something. I want to give him something 
something he will cherish.” 

The guard sniffed. “The gentleman cannot be 
troubled by such as you,” he said. 

“ Then will you let me see you give it him ? ” pleaded 
the man desperately. He unfastened the macintosh 
and half drew forth a roll of manuscript. A look of 
disgust came upon the other’s face as the macintosh fell 
open, and revealed that the big-boned, emaciated body 
it had hidden was naked to the waist. 

The guard put his gloved left hand upon the shoulder 
of the macintosh. “ This means prison,” he said. 

“ I have no clothes and I must see Mr. Fennel. 

“You can’t! ” said the guard. 

The man slipped from between the guard’s fingers ; 
he had fainted. The noise of his fall was as of lead 
falling on wood, although the pavement was marble. 

“ Carry him out into the air of the street,” said the 
guard. “ Do not let the police interfere ; we do not 
want fuss.” 

Blaise Fennel pushed past his guards and stepped 
down from the platform. “ Was someone asking for 
me ? ” he enquired. 

“No, Mr. Fennel,” said the shirt-fronted guard. 
“ It is only a man has fainted with the heat.” 

“ Poor fellow,” said Blaise Fennel. “I am sorry. 
Where is he ? ” 

“ They have taken him into the street.” 


Chapter III 


Arnold checked his stride in the marble vestibule of 
the Royalties Hotel where Norman de Valing was 
staying, and to which he had requested him to come. 
Arnold wondered why he had been asked to call—if 
it was for anything which was particularly unpleasant; 
he also wondered if he would manage to be civil in the 
event of de Valing being very sugary. 

He suspected that Mr. Sard, or Bennetta acting 
through Mr. Sard, had petitioned de Valing to press the 
advisability of an exhibition of Arnold Brooke’s pictures. 
With tact, Sard Eglantine Sard had intimated that he 
himself would consider that he was doing art and the 
city of Birmingstow a service by covering expenses, 
and by seeing that the most useful people were entangled 
in the scheme. 

From their first meeting Arnold had liked Mr. Sard, 
and his liking had taken a great leap to something which 
was near filial affection on the night when the musician 
had played for him alone. The candle in the music- 
room had not been fit, and Sard Eglantine Sard had 
played from the dusk into the dark. For hours he had 
played on in the darkness, the violin at his shoulder 
seeming to have become a limb of his body for its 
readiness to obey his will, a voice of his heart to obey 
his moods. When he ceased there had been a long 
quietness. Then he had said, “ Is there someone in 
the room with me ? ” 

“ Yes, Arnold Brooke,” the young man had replied. 

“ The artist ? ” Mr. Sard asked, as if he struggled 
with the vagaries of old recollections. 

“ No ; just Arnold Brooke,” Arnold had answered. 

And now he wondered what he should say if Mr. Sard 
85 


86 


HAMMER MARKS 


was repeating his offer of publicity. Ben Brown was 
also willing to help with comments in the Press. Arnold 
wondered what de Valing could do in the matter save 
pose and look pink. 

Arnold asked himself what answer he should make to 
de Valing if such were the reason for this interview. 
He wondered how he could tell de Valing that if he did 
decide to break the shell of his reticence in art he would 
sooner use any other art-whisk to froth up his praise. 
It was so difficult to be rude to kindness, even when that 
kindness came from the most odious of all vulgar types 
a vulgar patrician. 

Arnold walked slowly to where the marble vestibule 
opened out to the marble lounge. He Valing was 
sitting in a red morocco arm-chair. With polished 
stone on his every side his flesh looked pulpy in its 
freshness. Arnold noticed with slight distaste that he 
had used the excuse of shaving to carry powder across 
his nose, and that the powder was pink—a different 
pink from his complexion. It was possibly the powder 
which was scented with white rose perfume ; but a 
thinner perfume was about him somewhere, on his side 
hair or his handkerchief or his person ; the two essences 
mixed without mingling. Apart from the objection¬ 
ableness of either scent, the ill-assortment of the two 
offended Arnold as much as if they had been clashing 
colours—pea green and middle chrome. He knew that 
he would not be able to be civil throughout the night. 

He Valing did not rise. He put out his hand to be 
lifted, and said, “ You are late ; I hate unpunctuality.” 

“ In what way late ? I made no appointment,” said 
Arnold. 

“ I am so disappointed in you. You vacillate. But 
then ”—here came a weary sigh—“ I have had so many 
disappointments ; I grow accustomed to them. Shall I 
tell you of my dream ? ” 

Arnold examined him more carefully than ever he had 
cared to before. He came to no conclusion. He 
supposed that a mastiff looking at a Pekinese would 
arrive at the same extent of deduction: the Pekinese 


CHAPEL GROVE 


87 


was another dog, an entire dog, hut a dog of another 
sort, and the stuff he smelt of had been put on to take 
away his dog odour. 

“You can relate your dreams if it will give you any 
pleasure, but cannot we go somewhere else ? This 
marble place reminds me of the crematorium, particu¬ 
larly near the fireplace ; it looks like the portals where 
the bodies slide in. Those damned things on the pillars 
are probably sample urns. It is rather a fine night 
outside.” 

“It is chilly; we will go to my rooms. There is a 
fire there, and I have some things which I wish you to 
see.” He rose and walked towards the lift, touching 
tables and chairs on either side of him with his finger¬ 
tips as he passed them. “ I did not know that you 
were an authority on decoration. You would like my 
place in Devonshire. I have lately had electric light 
installed, and I catch it and float it down in hanging 
bowls of coloured glass. It gives—you know that 
golden brown light which hangs above Napoleon’s 
tomb ? I have always considered it worthy of a greater 
man. At night all my rooms are fit with it. By day 
all my rooms are grey.” Again the weary sigh. “ I 
have lived so long with grey, but no one wants a frozen 
bridegroom.” 

Arnold looked at the man in stupefaction. “ What 
in the name of April fool is he working to ? ” he asked 
himself as the lift swept upward. “ Is he working up 
to anything or is he having as much difficulty in being 
civil as I am and overdoing it in consequence ? ” 

“ I was about to tell you my dream,” said de Valing, 
taking his keys from his pocket as he walked along the 
passage. “ When I first saw you I thought, ‘ There is a 
man who needs a friend.’ I pictured you coming down 
to my place in Devonshire, and my helping you with 

your art, and it being finked with my poetry-” He 

fitted the key in the door and revealed the room. 

It was turned from an ordinary hotel room by a 
massing of chrysanthemums, which frilled and curled 
back their petals to the stem, and whose odour reminded 



88 


HAMMER MARKS 


Arnold of cemeteries. There was extant another perfume, 
a distilled perfume loose in the air ; it was a thick 
perfume like hyacinth, terribly out of place. Arnold 
followed into the room and pushed the door to with his 
heel. 

“ For what did you ask me to visit you ? ” he 
asked. 

“ I was telling you of my dream.” 

“ I know. What did you want to see me about ? ” 

He Valing picked up an oval marquetry box, and, 
sli din g the lid, took one of the many little aromatic 
pastilles which were contained therein. He spurned 
the air with his fingers as he flung it to the blazing fire. 
A pungent odour of friar’s balsam wafted in a gust from 
the flame. 

“ What was that for ? ” asked Arnold, wishing the 
moment he had spoken that he had not shown interest. 

De Valing rucked the purses beneath his eyes as 
intimation of abhorrence, and said, “ I hate the smell 
of paint. I am sorry .” 

Arnold gave an audible gasp. For a week he 
had been enamelling with geranium the post-office 
pillar-boxes about the streets of Birmingstow, and he 
believed that De Valing must have seen him, and 
knowing him for a “ spare-time ” gentleman, had 
arranged a private torture before he betrayed him to 
Bennetta Sard; before he made the announcement 
which would damn him in the eyes of the cultural 
clique. “ A lamp-post painter,” he would say. 

Arnold had the hallucination which comes to those 
who have run in circles of devastating fear round some 
dreaded obsession, drawing closer as they speed, and 
at the moment when they rush into the sucking hole of 
the vortex are unprepared, and succumb to demented 
terror, lapseless panic. He had the illusion that he 
could actually feel his brain, like a cloven humming-top, 
reefing, yet rocking as it spun from the string ; that as 
it went in one direction, his body was whisked round 
and round in the opposite, at incredible speed, upon a 
spinning table. Such sensation is too intense to last 


CHAPEL GROVE 


89 


beyond moments, but into each moment is coerced 
time not dictated to by clocks. 

Arnold’s panic lasted only the length of his gasp. 
It did not exhaust itself. He clamped it down under the 
crow-bar of his will, which he had tempered to toughest 
steel by agonising over his special cowardice in the 
years which had made it possible for him to walk 
laughing among the acquaintances of Bennetta Sard with¬ 
out any knowing that he trembled with sickening fear 
at every step. 

It came suddenly to Arnold that de Valing, in speaking 
of paint, had only been referring to his admitted painting 
of pictures, and that what was intended was a slight 
upon what Arnold considered the most cherished 
guerdon from his youth. 

After all, his secret was not known. 

His gasp of startled surprise would be put down to 
feeling the artist in him scratched, and not the spare¬ 
time gentleman stabbed. 

De Valing made lissome his thumb and finger with 
spectacular daintiness, and chose another pastille. He 
tipped it into the fire as if he cherished it and mourned 
to let it go. So must Cleopatra have placed the pearl 
in wine, knowing well that not only her court and 
Anthony, but all the unborn men of coming ages, 
watched. 

“ Shall I tell you my dream ? ” he asked. 

“ No ; tell me why I was asked to call.” 

“ You enter where angels fear to tread.” 

“ Perhaps they cannot stand the stink,” said Arnold. 
“ Oh, well, the dream ? ” 

De Valing placed the oval box upon the mantelshelf. 
“ When first I saw you,” he said, “ I thought, ‘ There 
is the most reliable man I have ever seen. He looks 
as if he would follow an ideal through any torrent which 
barred his path,’ but I saw also that you were of the 
earth earthy ; one of the common people, vulgar and 
ill-bred. So much was apparent in your face. Be 
seated ; you are not then so overpowering.” De Valing 
reached and cast another pastille to the blaze, and 


90 


HAMMER MARKS 


continued : “ It is my pleasure to help the struggling 

artists who show themselves worthy of my assistance. 
I had visions of you coming to Valingtree and my helping 
you in whatever way money could to pursue your art 
in a beautiful environment.” 

“ And your dream ? ” persisted Arnold wearily, 
passing the oval box to de Valing before the owner 
could reach it. 

“ That was my dream,” said de Valing mournfully. 
“ I thought it was time that our rivers met—rivers of 
thought and song. The awakening was cruel; but, then, 
I might have known that where scum floats there cannot 
be artistic depth.” 

Arnold began to wonder if the man had been drinking 
or if a life of artificial glossing had softened his brain. 
He pitied him, but he could not understand him or for 
what he pitied him. “ I suppose,” he thought, “ it 
is the mastiff pitying the Pekinese and the Pekinese 
pitying the mastiff.” He looked round the room a 
little bewildered. 

“ Ah, no,” sighed de Valing, “ it is too late for that 
now,” and shook his head. “ But there are ways in 
which I can help you.” He swept his hands through 
space, as if he smoothed away all trouble and woe from 
the future of Arnold. “ Do you wish to be helped ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Arnold, who thought this the quickest 
way to find out the motive of the invitation. “ Yes. 
Only keep your little hands still; they make me feel 
that you sit up till two and three in the morning doing 
fancy-work.” 

“ The conversation is becoming impossible. Are you 
willing for me to help you ? ” 

Arnold knew perfectly well that the other expected 
him to say “ No ! ” Before he spoke he reached the 
pastilles once more, and, passing them, said “ Yes.” 

De Valing shook his head and said wearily, “ Ah ! I 
knew you were calculating.” 

Arnold had never admired himself so much as now, 
when he remained silent. “ So this,” he thought, “ is 
a little sip of the cup which is drunk by those who sell 


CHAPEL GROVE 


91 


their self-respect to gain recognition.” He wondered 
what the dregs were like, and loathed Norman de Valing. 

“ My object in asking you to see me was to offer you 
the illustrating of a book—a book of poems which is to 
carry the spirit of Birmingstow on bird o’ paradise wings 
out of the smoke of its habitation and set it free in the 
world. You are essentially a Birmingstow man. I am 
sorry. The illustrations need to be done by someone 
who would treat the subject-matter sympathetically, 
and must therefore be of the city \ the lower the better, 
so long as he can illustrate.” 

“ Tell me more about it,” said Arnold. “Is it your 
own verse ? ” „ 

“ There is a distinction between verse and poetry, 
said de Valing. “But of course you could not be 
expected to know. Several of the poems are my own. 
My connection with the city has been neglected too 
long ; it is time that my oil showed rainbow-spread 
upon the surface of its river.” 

“ There is quite a lot of oil from the factories floating 
on the River Day as it is. I rather think that is, why 
they brick it in in its channel like an open sewer. 

“ Oh, why will you jar ? ” asked de Valing, using one 
of his favourite expressions. He drew in his breath 
through his teeth with a liquid sound of distaste. 

“ Who are the other poems by ? ” asked Arnold. 

By way of reply de Valing drew from his pocket a 
wallet, and, taking therefrom a newspaper cutting, 
handed it to Arnold. Arnold took and read it: 

“ Death of Birmingstow’s Carroty Poet 
“ A verdict of 4 death from starvation was recorded 
at an inquest held by the Birmingstow Coroner to-day 
respecting the death of a man who was found dead in 
the room where he lodged at No. 7 Dayside Street. 
The body was found by Charles Grummel, his land¬ 
lord, on Wednesday last, but death had taken place 
four days previously. 

“ The man’s name is unknown, but he had occupied 
the room for several months. He was a well-known 


92 


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figure in the neighbourhood owing to his peculiar 
appearance and habits. His hair was red and worn 
long, and this, together with his habit of stopping in 
the street and writing on scraps of paper, occasioned 
his being called ‘ The Carroty Poet ’-” 

A little glitter of anger flashed in Arnold as he realised 
who the man was from the slighting epithet. He looked 
up swiftly at de Valing, who was stroking his eyebrows 
with his forefinger, and asked, “ Did you see what they 
called him ? ” 

“ Yes. Quaint, isn’t it ? ” 

“ And in this, his obituary notice—the only marble 
he will ever have, Here, take it! I won’t finish reading 
it.” 

“ But there is to be a memorial. I intend to publish 
his poems,” announced de Valing. 

Arnold started from his chair and took a step forward. 
“ I have misjudged you, sir,” he exclaimed. “ I apolo¬ 
gise for anything slighting which I have said. Is this 
the book I may illustrate ? Is there much of his writing 

found ? How did you get hold of it, and where did-” 

“ Please sit down,” said de Valing. “ If you finish 
reading the cutting you will see what was left.” 

Arnold made a gesture of anger which finished in 
scorn. “ Not that tripe. Tell me yourself.” 

“ He was found, not in bed, but on a box where he had 
been leaning looking through the window. The house is 
on the height of one of those mountains of slums which 
look down the roofs to the heart of the city. Evidently 
his last act was to yearn over his Jerusalem—I am 
writing all this in the preface. In the firegrate were 
three charred blocks of what had evidently been the 
MSS. of two novels and a collection of poems. They 
were placed as if he had gone round them and over them 
with a lighted candle until they were burned through, 
with infinite patience and pain.” 

“ Can you feel like that about it ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ I can do more ; I can write like it. I am quoting 
from the preface to the book. The whole MSS. were 




CHAPEL GROVE 


93 


destroyed except the upper portion of the title page of 
one, and on the other the dedication was uppermost, 
and, although dropped over with candle grease, the 
wording could be read since the typing had charred to a 
dull black and the page to lead colour. The title of the 
one was * The City of Iron Kisses.’ Rather ridiculous, 
I think, since kisses, not being concrete, cannot be 
mineral. The dedication of the other was, ‘ To all those 
who make this, my city, beautiful with their passing 
to and fro.’ The poems were only distinguishable as 
such by the orderliness of their lines in ashes.” 

“ Might the two have been duplicates of one ? ” 

“ No ; different proportions.” 

“ What did you save, and how ? ” 

“ There were torn-up scraps of paper lying about the 
room. The police, thinking these might lead to the 
identity of the deceased, gummed the fragments on 
sheets of paper. There are twelve sheets forming seven 
complete poems. I will show them to you.” 

De Valing rose with such grace and languor as if he 
were facing a music-hall audience rather than a young 
man in irruption from conflicting admiration for his 
contemplated service to the art of the city and contempt 
for his immasculine movements. There was upon a 
table a silver casket, which had panels depicting scenes 
from de Valing’s poems in enamel. The lid was raised, 
and a little pile of brown paper sheets gummed over with 
scraps of paper was produced. Arnold took them 
reverently. 

The sheets were typewritten, and across the top of the 
first one was written in a careless handwriting, which in 
some way looked gay and jaunty beside the straight- 
laced typing, “ This poem is below the dignity of the 
others. Delete.” Arnold turned over the upper 
corners of the others, and found that on each was 
written “ Delete.” 

“ But,” said Arnold, “ He did not wish these to be 
published.” 

“ What has that to do with it ? ” asked de Valing. 

“ What has-” Arnold began, and broke off with 


94 


HAMMER MARKS 


a click of his tongue. “ Throw a few more of those 
fumigators on the fire. Throw them all on ! ” 

“ What for ? ” asked de Valing, and Arnold knew that 
he could have bitten his tongue out for asking. 

“ Because I hate the smell of blue blood when it 
begins to stink. I’m sorry ,” said Arnold. 

“ I have not arranged with you to do the illustrations,” 
said de Valing. 

“ I was not speaking of them,” snapped Arnold. 

“ You see, I think so quickly,” said de Valing, with 
his finicking lisp. “ I have thought all you have 
thought and am miles ahead before you get there.” 

“ If you have thought all that I have thought since 
I spoke, it is a miracle that you have me in the room. 
But, then, it is a miracle that either of us can tolerate 
the other at all.” 

“ I allow for certain things.” 

“ Then allow for them for a few minutes longer while 
I read,” said Arnold, and leaned his elbows on the table, 
one either side of the brown sheets, while he read. 

BLOOMARY NOCTURN 

In the Iron-mill the wheels sing, 

Sing a phantasy of frenzy ; 

In the Iron-mill the wheels sing. 

Sounding like a sweet, mad lady 
Laughing by a rushing torrent. 

Whirling wheel and leaping pulley 
With a shriek begin at evening, 

With a moan succumb at morning; 

For the mill grants bail at morning 
To the prisoners it has hoarded. 

Vainly the mill grants bail at morning 
When the prisoners are jaded, 

Spent and bruised and worn and broken, 

Caring but to sleep till evening ; 

Spent and bruised and very weary, 

That they may not see the sunshine 
Lighting up the comely meadows, 

See the fleet kingfisher flashing 
Up and down the shallow river, 

Where the village boys are bathing 
And the water lilies slumber. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


05 


In the mom the Sun is shining 
Through the iron framework windows, 
Painting on the wall before them 
Great church doors in saffron yellow, 
Barred across with bolts of purple 
From the shadows of the framework. 
And the bolts drop lower, lower, 

As the brave Sun rises higher, 

The bars sinister effacing— 

And the prisoners are free. 


Oh, how slowly the Moon is setting ! 
Tardily the Sun is coming 
Into his own, into his own, 

How the Moon is slow in setting ! 
Grudgingly the Sun is coming ; 
Somewhere in the World out yonder 
Nightingales are in the copses, 

There are moths among the heather, 
There are pine-trees standing talking 
To the wind along the hillside. 


Nightingales are in the copses. 

There are moths among the heather, 

There are pine-trees standing talking 
To the wind along the hillside. 

Oh, how slow the Sun is coming. 

God—You made me as a poet 
And you crush me to a blacksmith l 

As Arnold laid aside the sheet de Valing said, “ The 
man was uneducated, and the lines will want touching 
up—the ideas as well as the diction. I am altering the 
last line to something like this : ‘ But the town has many 
pleasures which the country does not dream of.’ That 
was probably what he was looking for or trying to 
express when he scribbled, ‘ This poem is below the 
dignity of the others.’ ” 

“You daren’t! ” exclaimed Arnold. “You daren’t 
come with a morphodite touch and emasculate a male 
poem like that. Oh, I know why you bear insults 
from me. It is because you think you can beat me at 
the game ; because the courage that is given to the 
de Valings will not let them back out of a war such as 


96 


HAMMER MARKS 


ours ; but I am not sneering now. I am not setting up 
black country metal against whatever God in His mys¬ 
tery has made you of. I am not thinking of you. I don’t 
care one of these little disinfecting tablets what you 
think of me—no more than you care what such as I 
think of you. I don’t see you, don’t know you. I only 
see a red-haired man moving his head from side to side 
above the vapour of a cup of coffee. I only see him 
lying with white ribs naked among patent leather shoes, 
and his fingers clawed and locked over a roll of songs an 
hour before they were murdered, companioned in a 
heap and murdered together ; burned at a stake for 
singing worship of a false god. And now you—you 
bring these discarded songs, that were not thought 
worthy of the stake, and wish to set them up and make 
them princes because their brothers were martyrs. And 
as if that were not enough, before they are shown to the 

populace you- Oh, you daren’t do it. You dare 

not. There’s a dead man leaning out of heaven with 
a hand to stop you.” Arnold sank his voice so that the 
last words were not perfectly clear. 

“ Surely you do not pose as an authority on literature 
or honour as well as posing as a painter of pictures ? ” 
scoffed de Valing. 

“No, I do not. I do not know if from an artistic 
point of view those fines are good or bad or very bad, 
but I know what my day to-day has been, and what my 
to-morrow will be, and at the end, and the end (to come 
when I am no older than he was) all the reward a heap 
of charred pictures in a corner, and I thanking God that 
hunger can kill; dying at a window on one of the slum 
mountains of Birmingstow, yearning over my Jerusalem. 
I do not know if those poems are flawless or full of flaws 
of English. But this I know ; the spirit is true. A man 
does not sacrifice his fife for an ideal and yet not know 
better than a man who only approaches it for the sake 
of a five-fine review in a London paper. Why do you 
wish to alter it ? ” 

De Valing assumed a pose. Laying the tips of his 
extended fingers upon his shoulders, he turned his 


CHAPEL GROVE 


97 


wrists at right angles and so formed epaulettes. “ If 
you peep beneath the poet’s mantle,” he said, “you 
should behold the philosopher. That verse ending 
exhibits, not a philosopher beneath the mantle, but a 
dissatisfied navvy. Why complain that God crushes 
to a blacksmith ? Why not exultation ? A poet is a 
great soul, equal, whether he be a tramp, like such a 
one as wrote those lines, or whether he is doomed, as I, 
to loiter about a king’s garden.” 

Arnold laid the sheets together in their little pile, and, 
placing his arms upon the table, interlaced his fingers 
so that the poems were locked in like an ancient encamp¬ 
ment in its earthworks. He looked at de Valing, and 
suffered his gaze for a minute before he spoke—coldly, 
and without the insolence of his defiant class. He said, 
“You have no right to interfere with these poems. The 
author wished them to be destroyed, even before he 
destroyed the others, as not representative of his pen. 
Why did he burn his completed work? Answer that 
and you will see that you cannot publish what was 
left—these crackled shards of pottery belong to the 
Museum of Oblivion.” 

“It is obvious that his spirit weakened at the end. 
He thought his work was a failure, that it was not good 
enough to reveal some aspects of the ‘ City of Iron 
Kisses,’ ” said de Valing, caressing a much mended and 
waxed china vase which he had discovered in an antique 
dealer’s that morning. 

Arnold retained his arms in a surround about 
the poems, but he lay back in the chair and laughed 
and laughed, throatily and mirthlessly. “ Oh, you 
pretty-picture, buttercup-pasture, cow-mooing poet- 
philosopher ! ” he said. Then he laughed again, heavily, 
as if death were the jest which piqued his mirth. 

“ And what is there funny in that ? ” asked de Valing, 
with selected accent. 

“ Funny ? ” exclaimed Arnold, swaying his head but 
not his shoulders. “ Nothing. Men weep sometimes 
for joy; why should not they laugh for sadness ? ” 
He rose and spread his hands, almost touching the 

Gh 


98 HAMMER MARKS 

poems “He burned his book because he knew the 
value of it—realised that it was perfection great with 
promise. Of all his inspirations, at the last came his 
greatest. It should have been his first. He spent the 
strength of his soul for the city; at the moment when 
that strength failed he had his giant revelation. His 
city was not worthy of his art. He realised it and 
destroyed what he had made.” He turned scornfully 
to de Valing. “ And what do you think your society 
of quacks would have done with the researches of this 

Ph ” D^not soil the MS.said de Valing.^ “ The police 
gave them to me in very neat condition. 

“ Gave them to you ? ” said Arnold. You are 
one of the very type which he preserved his hooks from 
by destroying them. Nothing touches you—one of 
the little worms of culture that the sick dog of civilisa- 
tion vomits. Nothing touches you; you thrive on 
disinfectants.” He Valing retained his nonchalant 
manner which was driving Arnold to frenzy. Nothing 
touches you. Think, that man touched you in the 
press when he was dying of starvation, and you wiped 
your sleeve with a handkerchief ; now, to get a local 
kissing, you propose to scrape his discarded mental 
rags together to show up some of your rhymes that you 
were showing Miss Sard : 

“ Great City, sheltering commerce 
Fiom the shocks of those 
Who would with strikes and mummers 
Place her in the throes 
Of misery, want, or ruin-” 

Arnold suddenly stopped and then stared at the 
ceiling. He sat down in the chair collapsingly. “ God ! ” 
he said. “ I had not thought of that. I know, I have 
always known, that if this city ever bred a genius that 
she would break him on her rack of ‘ Bread and butchers 
meat is necessary ; art is not ’ ; that she would hang him 
up broken and bloody by the Market Hall. Well, she 
has had her chance, and she has delivered herself of her 


CHAPEL GROVE 


99 


genius.” He drew out the words slowly, as if he read 
them written clumsily upon the belt of a spring-back 
measuring tape which he was gradually drawing forth. 
“ Even his name she has erased. That I suspected she 
would do. But I did not realise that she would not be 
content in destroying the artist. She also destroys his 
art.” 

“ I assume you are very long-windedly saying, ‘ Can 
any good come out of Nazareth ? ’ ” said de Valing. 

“ No, I am not. The Best came out of Nazareth. 
For what ? To be crucified. But His life-work was 
spared. This town has not the milk of Nazareth.” 

“ Perhaps you had better go,” said de Valing wearily. 
As if to intimate that there was to be no formal adieu, 
he walked to the window and looked at the sky. 

Arnold picked up the brown papers and counted them. 
There were twelve sheets yielding seven poems. He 
lifted them tenderly and laid them on the fire. They 
coiled in the blaze and fell back dead, mingling their 
black ashes. 

De Valing turned and walked towards the oval box 
of inlaid marquetry, his hand extended for a pastille. 
He stopped as he saw the black flakes in the fire. 

“ So ! ” said Arnold. “ Something touches you. If 
that does not cauterise your nostrils I do not know 
what would.” He walked to the door with an old face. 


Chapter IV 

“ Oh, that’s neither me leg nor me elbow. If you’re 
going to do it, do it; if you ain’t, say so.” The verbal 
peacock screech of Mrs. Raddle made fell havoc of the 
quiet which had existed in the back gardens of Chapel 
Grove. In his sequestered rubbish-patch behind the 
bean-sticks Mr. Raddle had been discovered sitting at 
ease. He was also smoking. 

Screwed up as he was between the shock of bean-sticks, 
the dustbin, and the palings, his knees at his chin, he 
was out of view from the windows of his house. His 
attitude might have been thought far from comfortable ; 
an attitude less furtive than that of a couchant leveret 
in tip brushwood yet more furtive than that of a wood¬ 
louse in its selected woodrot. 

“What do you think you are —a modest violet ?” 
She planted the back of her wrists among her hips and 
regarded him in constrained power. 

“I’m only having a straightback, Emma,” he made 
soft answer. 

“ Ow, it’s Emma an’ Ernie now, is it ? An’ what 
about the taters you was told to get up, eh, Ernie ? It’ll 
be me as’ll have to touch if there’s none for your supper. 
You’ll be damning and blasting, threatening me again 
—now don’t you start again ; I’m ready for you this 
time. I’m not always agoing to take it lying down ; 
even a worm will turn. With all the street up inarms, and 
everybody crying shame on yer. Yes—yes ! Every 
week-end the same, starting yer bullying.” All her 
words were now on one note, since she had reached the 
highest in her register. “ I begin to hate Saturdays 
and Sundays. Dread ’em. Dread ’em l ” 

“ Ar. Arter you’ve ’ad all out on me of a Friday 

IOO 


CHAPEL GROVE 


101 


night; yon don’t start creating till you’ve ’andled the last 
odd clogs o’ me wages.” 

During this half-hearted counter-attack Mrs. Raddle 
filled out her pose till it was that of a Spanish dancing- 
woman arresting attention before she commenced a 
bolero. She even smiled, and, jaunty, lifted her chin. 
But she did not commence to dance; she tapped her 
more forward foot and worked her head as if she reeved 
in rope. 

“ Go on,” she said. “ Go on. Tell me I have it all off 
you, like some women would if you’d married ’em.” 

“ Well, don’t you ? I ’ad none back this week.” 

“ Then what brings yer smoking ? I suppose it’s 
tea leaves again.” 

“ No, it’s broken glass.” 

“ Here ! Here ! Here \ ” she flung separately pennies 
round his feet. “ Bite ’em. See if they are good ’uns.” 

“ Give us another penny. I get half an ounce for 
fourpence.” 

She threw down a fourth coin. 

“ Can you spare it ? ” he asked. 

“ No. I can’t. What about them taters ? ” 

“ I took ’em into the scullery half an hour ago. 
They are under the sink.” 

She may have been mollified. “ Well, get us some 
mint.” She half turned, but only half. Mr. Raddle 
rose, revealing at the side of the box on which he had 
been sitting a bottle half filled with beer. 

“ You lousy, drunken, good-for-nothing swine, you 
are nothing better than a soddened sewer-rat. 
You-” 

Arnold closed the window of his bedroom, where he 
was packing a bag. A little “ Raddle ” amused him, 
but much of it made him irritable. Being unreasonable, 
it was his mother who bore the brunt of his ill-humour. 
He had not, as then, realised how wonderful a mother is, 
and of all mothers she the most wonderful for his 
particular needs. 

She was blacking his shoes, with an energy made 
profligate of its little store in reserve, and there was 



102 


HAMMER MARKS 


trepidation in her mother heart. She could not decide 
whether or not to broach a certain subject to Arno, 
and so long as she was kept busy helping him to leave 
the house as a gentleman her indecision decided its 
own issue. She would have no opportunity to ask 
Arno if he was not mistaken—ever so, ever so mis¬ 
taken—in turning round in the manner of his life like 
he had done during the last year ; to waste so much 
money on pleasure and dress and in keeping in with 
people who often spent more in an evening than he 
earned in a week. And to what end—to impress 
people without heart, except for their own kind, and 
to lose all his niceness like he was doing—he had not 
lost his niceness yet, but he would—and he had no 
need to be an ape before he was a gentleman; he was 
signed a gentleman by his inner nature. 

“ Mother! Where’s my new socks—the plain 
ones ? ” 

She went to the pile of garments she had stacked 
and pulled out the grey socks, and went to the foot of 
the stairs. 

“ I’ll throw them up,” she said. 

“ No, bring them. I’m behind-hand as it is.” 

He heard her slow hurry on the stairs, the shaking 
of the handrail as she gripped it. He was always 
annoyed by her having to put both feet on each step ; 
almost as much as by her having to walk down the 
stairs backwards because she did not want to fall. 

“ It would have been quicker for me to fetch them,” 
he said, as she brought them into the room. 

Her face, as it had lost its freshest outline, had 
modulated into very tender curves and soft contours, 
that made for beauty—the unambitious beauty of a 
cottage garden pink, which even in its wilting is beauti¬ 
ful ; chiefly because it is an unpretentious flower. 
Neither her gentle mouth nor even her plenteous hair, 
which was the grey of morning light, and rested 
lambently about her forehead, served to keep attention 
from her eyes ; great, silent eyes, vivid with the grey 
and glisten of an evening after rain. But Arnold, 


CHAPEL GROVE 


103 


because he was her son who had always known her, 
did not know how beautiful she was. 

She laid the socks on the bed, and Arnold pushed a 
couple of double collars towards her, saying, “ You 
might warm the insides of these over the gas to stop 
my tie slipping. Here’s the matches. No, like this. 
Have you seen another stud about anywhere ? I’ve 
had one kicking about for days, and now I want it 
blessed if I can drop on it. You have not been clearing 
up, have you ? ” 

“ No, Arno, but I’ll go across to the shop and get you 
one if you like.” 

“ It don’t matter. Oh, I’d better have one. I 
don’t know. I really want a button on this shirt before 
I pack it up. Have you got an octagonal one left ? ” 

“ Do you mean one of those with corners on ? ” 

“ Yes ” 

“ I’ll look in the button-bag, and do you want me 
to get you a stud or not ? ” 

“ No, no, no. I’ve said a dozen times. I’ll make 
shift. Can you bring the button up here to put on ? 
Oh, I’ll come down. I want a tuck in the sleeve of the 
shirt I have on. Oh, I’ll come down. Let me go first.” 

As she followed him downstairs she asked, “ Shall 
you be home Sunday night or go straight to work 
Monday? ” 

“ I don’t know for sure. To-morrow night, I expect.” 

“ Where are you going ? ” 

“ Stopping at Mr. Sard’s over to-morrow. Why ? ” 

“ Nothing, Arno, only I don’t know where to find 
you if anything happened.” She tipped up the calico 
button-bag, and the miscellaneous collection of little 
things ran over the table. 

“ Happened ? Good heavens ! ” he said. “ What 
do you want to do it that way for ? Wouldn’t it be 
better to pick one out ? ” 

“ I thought you was in a hurry, and wanted one 
with corners on. Don’t be hasty with me, Arno.” 

“ All right, mother, all right.” 

His mother’s hand shook on the needle a little as she 


104 


HAMMER MARKS 


pleated the tuck. She wondered if the time was right 
to ask him if he was sure he was right to be sowing 
unsparingly through his spring the golden grain he 
might want as food before the harvest. 

“ Some way to-night I wish I’d got the little shop 
again, Arno.” 

“ Good heavens ! Why, mother ? You don’t want 
a poky little place like that again, with everyone coming 
in and out to see you, even if it is a job to get along 
sometimes. Why do you want it again ? ” 

“ It was company when you’d gone to night school, 
and—and it would help a bit if you have another bad 
winter. You’ve been lucky two years running now, 
but you know what the painting trade is ; it’s only 
good for six months of the year.” 

“ Well, I shall have work while Norths have got any, 
anyway. I only had six short weeks last winter ; no 
reason why this should not be the same.” 

“ It might not, Arno.” 

“ Well, I hope it is. I’ve spent the last of my savings. 
I had not a penny yesterday till I was paid. Have 
you finished my shoes ? ” 

“ No, I’ll do them. Here’s the shirt.” He ran 
lightly up the stairs, and his mother went sadly to 
polish his shoes. 

She had not been able to tell him all she wanted to, 
yet she felt she had not failed altogether. He had not 
been hasty about it. She heard him coming down the 
stairs for his shoes, and she put them on the bottom 
step for him and went back into the scullery even more 
quickly than usual. He had never seen her cry. 

She had made a cup of tea to warm him as he went, 
but he could not stay to drink it, and for the first time 
in his fife he forgot to wish her good-night. 

As he closed the front door and touched his silken 
scarf, to assure himself again that no part of his gala 
attire was revealed for the scrutiny and comment of 
those who pry through grimy curtains and gritty panes, 
he heard the voice of Mrs. Raddle, which made little of 
a modifying row of houses between, it being a voice 


CHAPEL GROVE 


105 


which was trained to the acoustics of a rectangular 
block of houses. 

“ She is everything which stands for this side of my 
life,” he thought. “ Raddle, stewed peas, the Petticoat 
Market, fish and chips. She is music halls and home ; 
she is all that never went with evening dress.” 

He chanced to glance at the bay window of Mrs. 
Raddle’s parlour. The cotton lace curtains were 
dyed to ochre, about eighty shades deeper than 
“ Paris,” as which colour they had been bought. 
“ Cream ” curtains were fashionable in Chapel Grove 
as they “ did not show the dirt,” and so escaped some 
of “ the rack and ruin of washing-day.” Apparently 
Mrs. Raddle’s curtains had not escaped last washing- 
day ; if a banal colour can shriek, these squealed. 
Under their tent of gold thread stood a maroon jar¬ 
diniere in which was the inevitable Chapel Grove 
aspidistra, with leaves coiled laxly from endeavour to 
grow toward the light, despite how many times it 
was turned round. On the ledge of the window-sash 
was the long red polony of a draught excluder. The 
curtains were tied stringently back with crocheted 
blue curtain bands, through which was threaded and 
bowed a purple ribbon. In the shadowy room beyond 
this colour conglomeration, and so delicate by contrast 
that it appeared to be as deliciously tinted as mother of 
pearl, was the face of Mary, who was called the Rose 
of Chapel Grove. 

She was Mrs. Raddle’s stepdaughter. She had 
Cinderella’s face—Cinderella of the fireside rather than 
the ballroom. Her little head was massed about with 
amber-coloured curls and her eyes were of darker blue 
than woodland hyacinths. 

She was not looking at Arnold ; she was gazing 
drearily into distance beyond distance. Arnold 
checked his thoughts. “ I did not mean you, Rose of 
Chapel Grove,” he said to himself. “ I bet it galls you 
much as it does me. I wonder if that was funny— 
Mrs. Raddle asking Ernie if he thought he was a violet ? 
This £ back chat ’ and the painter’s ‘ rousting ’ and the 


106 


HAMMER MARKS 


men at the School of Art ‘ pulling somebody’s leg,’ if it 
were put into king’s English, is the ‘ brilliant wit of 
Sard and de Valing and Ben Brown and all the others. 
I wish I could laugh at it when their wit passes by me. 
It makes me think I am a clavier with one or two dummy 
keys. It must be a shock to some of them when they 
put all their skill and delicacy of touch into a chord 
and I do not respond, but remain with my little dummy 
keys stopping up. 

“ I wonder if that is why de Valing’s taunts never 
ruffle me, if it’s because from the beginning I sensed 
the malice of the whole and am not able to record the 
witty worth of separate sallies. 

“ At present he thinks that every stab tells and I 
bear it stoically. He knows I cannot be slain with his 
Vere-de-Vere birth. What will he do when he finds I 
cannot be mortified with wit ? It cannot be long before 
he finds out that I have no sense of humour, although 
I have complete comprehension of things ridiculous. 
How will he strike at me then ? For he will not let me 
alone. It is too late for him to ignore me. I must be 
prepared.” 

He worried over the problem, not because it was 
urgent, but because he had other anxieties. Money 
was wanted ; a week-end with an evening at a theatre 
left him with empty pockets throughout the week. 
He had told Mr. Sard that he was devoting himself to 
art and could not spare so much time for pleasure, but 
when he did show himself, he had to cast silver as a 
drunken man scrambles pennies. Work worried him ; 
it was after the end of the busy season, and firms lived 
from job to job. His health was not his wonderful 
heart-dancing health; he had had peculiar stiletto 
slashes inside him, and, although he mentioned them to 
no one, each time they ran him through his mind 
slipped its leash and coursed back to the memory of a 
boy lying prone, screaming for the removal of his 
beloved father. As ever when the great anxieties 
surround, the petty irritations received the labouring 
of the mind. The vultures may be sitting intent around 


CHAPEL GROVE 


107 


the man collapsing in the wilderness ; it is the sand 
blowing into his ears which he knocks away. So 
Arnold worried as to what Norman de Valing would 
do next. 

He released the buttons of his coat as he entered 
the Palatine Hotel, where he was to meet Sard Eglantine 
Sard, and put on a bravura air as he surrendered his 
suit-case to a page to carry to the cloakroom. 

Arnold had a warming of his heart towards Mr. Sard 
whenever he encountered him, since the quality of Mr. 
Sard’s welcoming smile intimated that he savoured the 
cream of content in becoming aware of his young 
friend’s presence. 

Norman de Valing was seated with Mr. Sard, but he 
rose and meandered between the little tables to one in a 
corner where two ladies were seated. Arnold watched 
him out of the corner of his mind. 

“Mr. de Valing grows kind,” said Arnold as he shook 
hands with Mr. Sard. 

“ Oh, I believe he is coming back in a moment,” 
said Sard. “ What are you drinking ? ” 

Before he could reply, a refined cheering, quietly 
extolling, rose from those who sat round the little 
table. Attention was drawn to a handsome elderly 
gentleman, who had entered in company with several 
others and a lady. He was the Earl of Callantyre, who 
had been awarding prizes at a flying meeting earlier 
in the afternoon. 

“ Rather distinguished company to-night,” said Mr. 
Sard. “ And that is Sir Charles Wanmore, the actor- 
manager, behind you. He’s a disappointment off, 
isn’t he ? By the way, why did you destroy those 
papers of de Valing’s ? ” 

“ Mr. Sard, how could they be his ? I know the 
police gave them him, but they had no right to. I 
destroyed them because that was obviously the wish 
of the author. He burned his best work. He had 
written on these that they were not for publication. 
He had torn them to small pieces and thrown them 
away. If they belonged to anyone they belonged to 


108 


HAMMER MARKS 


another Birmingstow failure who would appreciate 
them. De Valing is a successful foreigner, and he 
designed to utilise them that their sweet acid should 
show how soothing was the anointing oil he intended to 
smear the city with. You must pardon me if I am 
heated about it, but de Valing is a cuckoo bird. He 
contemplated exploiting the work of a man who had 
suffered the extreme penalty for being born an artist of 
this city. He had died of starvation ; that was enough, 
without having a literary resurrection man exhume and 
sell his intellectual corpse to the city which had-” 

Mr. Sard chuckled and held up his hand. 

“ Oh, well,” said Arnold sulkily, “ I know I have not 
the gift of tongues like he has, but I know what I 
mean.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked Sard, “ Go quietly, 
and have another shot.” 

“ I mean,” said Arnold, “ this city makes window 
transparencies and advertises them in her catalogue 
as cathedral glass-” 

“ Does music enter into that sweeping assertion ? ” 

“ I do not understand music. The meanest music 
that is not vulgar turns my heart to water. The same 
as do the works of the great composers. But I know 
that there is such a thing as really bad verse and 
atrocious painting, and, worse than that, there is 
mediocre art of all kinds which goes decked in royal 
regalia. Music I cannot say. There seems to be ever 
a crowd of musicians who to me are wonderful, coming 
and going here as if Birmingstow were a well which 
supplied them with some necessity. Half the singers 
of the land may be bred of Birmingstow. I do not 
know. I only wish to speak of what I understand. 
There is that big bearded musician we have ; one feels 
in the second minute of seeing him that he is great, but 
in the first minute one has felt that he is not of Birming¬ 
stow, drop by drop. He may be, I don’t know ; he 
may have been born in a house facing the ludicrous 
fountain memorial, or he may have come from not far 
away with others to the well.” 



CHAPEL GROVE 


109 


“No, he was born in London,” said Mr. Sard. 

“You were not born in Birmingstow of Birmingstow 
stock. You came with others to the well. You ask 
me what I think of a thing of which I have no know¬ 
ledge ; weigh that in with my opinion. The city prides 
herself on being a centre of culture in the other arts, 
whereas she is only a centre for commercialising them. 
She is great as an educational centre. I have not 
travelled, and yet I know that. She should be content 
with that and not set up a culture shop. A little 
culture is vulgarity; it makes the pupil spurn the 
ethics of nature. As far as music is concerned here, I 
should say it is as with the churches—not indifference 
which prevents exaltation, but general and weak 
interest.” Arnold stopped abruptly. 

“ You think, then,” said Sard, " that Birmingstow 
cannot make an artist ? ” 

“ God makes the artist and then leaves him to the mercy 
of fools,” said Arnold. 

“ Barret Ager, the novelist, represents Birmingstow. 
Do you say he is not an artist ? ” 

“ One of the finest. But he is not of Birmingstow. 
In the novel The Doctor of Chance, which is practically 
autobiography, he speaks of himself as coming from the 
country near. Ten miles away is far enough to find a 
different civilisation. He was born and bred to later 
youth at Broachampton, in a green spot of the black 
country.” 

“ Are you an artist ? ” 

“ Why do you ask ? ” 

“ De Valing said you destroyed the poems to escape 
revealing that you could not illustrate them,” said Mr 
Sard. 

“ Then it was a trap ! ” exclaimed Arnold, starting 
up. “I wondered why he asked me to visit him.” 
Arnold sat down again ; de Valing was come to the 
table. 

“ Are you a professional artist or not ? ” asked Mr. 
Sard. 

“ I have been speaking to a lady where he worked 


110 


HAMMER MARKS 


last week,” said Norman de Valing. “ He is two things ; 
he is a journeyman housepainter, when he can get work, 
and he is also a spare-time gentleman.” 

It seemed as if every person in the lounge must have 
heard the words. The whole world seemed hushed 
to Arnold, so that he heard the rubbing of a woman’s 
furs behind him. 

“ Cad! ” said Arnold. “ Cad, and a cad to no 
purpose. Whatever is the outcome of this, it will not 
benefit you a scrap. Right— right—right in the middle 
of you, you are a cad. My blood tells me that, my 
blood, which is of the servant classes. I was born in 
one of the worst streets in Birmingstow ; I am engaged 
in one of the meanest occupations ; and I despise you 
too much to pity you. If I met you in the pages of a 
book I should say you were drawn from a valet who had 
been left money ; but, meeting you in real fife, you 
make every drop of blood in my body separately 
sick ’ ’ 

Mr. Sard and de Valing retained the dignity of 
silence. Arno rose as a man with cramp, and picked up 
his gloves with his fingers. “ This is the difficult part, 
he thought, “the untheatrical exit. There is an earl 
beside you. How would he go ? Think, impersonal 
characterisation ; think, and then don t do it. There is 
an actor on the other side ; think, and then don’t do 
that either. Go like Arnold Brooke; avoid the 
gesture-” 

A waiter, seeing him standing, stepped forward. 
“You are waiting for your coat, sir ? ” Arnold allowed 
the gli din g of his eyelids to say “ Yes ” without inter¬ 
rupting his thoughts. “ How would Arnold Brooke 
go ? In fear and trembling ; yes, but without a smile 
or they would know, and without a gesture. This 
waiter is giving me respite. Beware the gesture ! ” 

The waiter laid the silk scarf across his shoulders 
and arranged his coat upon him as carefully as if he 
were made of eggshell. Then he moved the arm-chair 
upon which Arnold had been seated, and, parting 
the skirt of the overcoat, touched the long tails beneath, 



CHAPEL GROVE 


111 


more as if to assure himself that they had not fallen 
off than to avert creases. Arno stood tranquilly, his 
thoughts continuing. No, this was how the actor would 
prepare, and the patrician would make the gestureless 
exit. How would Arnold Brooke go in such circum¬ 
stances ? How would Arnold Brooke go- 

The waiter passed him his hat, or, rather, placed it in 
the hand which retained the gloves, and then offered 
the stick with the silver ball. Not to have thought of it 
before ! Arnold Brooke would not go at all; he would 
stay with this swine that it was possible to tolerate 
only because he was a swine of padded velvet. 

He took the stick with the silver ball from the waiter. 
“ Thank you,” he said, “ but I only wanted my coat. 
Bring me a creme-de-menthe.” He placed his hat 
upon his head and sat down as the waiter moved away. 
His chair was farther from the table now, and he 
crossed his legs and touched the table with his toe. 
He wondered if one of them would ask if they should 
seek a table in the smoke-room, or if they would put the 
question with the eyes, or—and this would be awful— 
if they would remain and ignore him. 

The liqueur was brought, and he paid the full tip 
for complete satiating service, yet not sixpence beyond. 
He rested the back of his hand upon the table, the 
short glass-stem between his fingers, and his thoughts 
played lance-like upon his judges, and then turned self 
intent. 

Why, since he was Arnold Brooke, was his body not 
trembling ? This temperamental quivering without the 
physical tremor was terrible. How was he to drink 
the liqueur ? How would Arnold Brooke drink it ? 
Had he to go through the whole thing again before he 
lifted the morsel of glass ; the given point problem of 
what the earl would do, what the actor would do, what 
Arnold Brooke would do, only to find the answer when 
he had done the wrong thing ? 

The silence lasted. 

De Valing wore an engraved signet-ring. He crooked 
his finger the better to see the crest of a lion upon the 



112 


HAMMER MARKS 


stone. Mr. Sard was looking pensively at the young 
man who could not meet his gaze ; so much of thwarted 
affection was in it; so much of Bennetta was in her 
father’s face. Arnold felt that he must have sinned 
without knowing what his sin was. 

“ Do you know the lines which commence ‘ The 

shorn lamb crying for its-’ ” began de Valing, but 

Mr. Sard interrupted. 

“ Wait in the smoke-room while I speak to Mr. 
Brooke. 

“ Now,” he said, when de Valing had tripped away, 
“ have you anything to say or tell me? ” 

“ There is not anything which has not been said. 
I am a housepainter and an interloper ; de Valing is a 
cad. As before-” 

“You understand that, although I do not censure 
you, I cannot let you engage my daughter’s thought and 
attention ? ” 

“ I understand, sir,” said Arnold, as the gleam went 
out of life. “ And—and thank you.” 

He rose, bowed, and walked to the street. Only 
one thought was in his mind, in his heart : “Bennetta ; 
what will Bennetta believe ? Bennetta ; what will 
Bennetta believe ? ” He had failed to find the answer 
when he came to Chapel Grove. It seemed to him that 
the women grouped at the doorways of the Grove were 
more numerous to-night ; that they looked more 
rusted by the night shadows ; and that the light from 
the lamp at the entrance to the Grove breasted against 
the brick walls more grudgingly than usual, and 
varnished the faces of the groups a staler brown, as if it 
could destroy darkness but not create light. 

The chatter ceased as he turned into the Grove. 
That was usual. The flat tablets of their faces were all 
turned towards him. He swung a glance round the 
groups ; he had always been pleased with his mother 
for not making one more in these “ canting cliques.” 
She was not among them now. He realised suddenly, 
with brushing of thought, that his coat was fallen open, 
revealing shimmer of satin lining and a stinted spread 


CHAPEL GROVE 


113 


of shirt-front. His hands twitched to fasten his coat, 
and he shuddered by reason of his negligence. He had 
been walking slowly. He continued to do so. He 
felt that the thoughts of these people did not flutter, 
they spread towards him. 

There were certainly more people about to-night 
than was usual. It betokened, he concluded, that 
Mrs. Raddle’s little tiff with Ernie had developed to one 
of those stupendous bi-monthly disagreements ; that 
probably there had been the throwing of things— 
crockery and footwear. Well, thank goodness that 
she was as great a nuisance as she was, instead of half 
as much ; it enabled him to ignore her. 

He pushed open the gate and tapped the knocker. 
The door was opened by Mary Raddle. 

Arnold looked at Mary in complexity of alarm and 
embarrassment ; he could not decide if he were at the 
wrong house or whether she were in the wrong house. 
His first thought was that his introspection had walled 
him in so that he had not seen the necessary direction 
of his steps, his next thought that Mrs. Raddle and 
Ernie had excelled all previous “ rumpuses ” and Mary 
had sought protection from his mother. 

He had lived for several years in the next house to 
Mary yet had never spoken to her. He knew nothing 
of her except that she was quiet in disposition, winsome 
of manner, and pretty with rather a delicious prettiness ; 
that she never sang in her home ; that she never picked 
buttonholes from her father’s flowers ; that she made 
her own dresses ; that her footwear was never slovenly ; 
that when she bought sweets they were usually in 
picture boxes ; that she went three times a day on 
Sunday to chapel and sometimes during the week ; 
that at one time she seemed about to be married, but 
the bluff, heavily-jowled man—Arnold had heard him 
called Mr. Carrol—who used to escort Mary home had 
ceased to do so. 

Arnold in silence continued to look at Mary. She 
was dressed in a crossover dress of Roman stripes in 
which apricot and old rose predominated. Her face 
Hh 


114 HAMMER MARKS 

was tender and sad ; fright was in her eyes—fright 
for him. She was silent, looking at him. Arnold s 
mind was too full of thoughts of Bennetta Sard for him 
to grasp quickly the situation. 

“ I’ye made a mistake. I’ve come to the wrong 
house,” said Arnold, raising his hat and backing a step. 

“ No, this is your house.” 

“ Oh,” said Arnold. 

“ Yes,” she replied, and blinked her eyes, with the 
perplexity of tears in readiness. The look pathetic 
suited Mary’s type of prettiness. Arnold wondered it 
Bennetta, who did not rely on expression for beauty, 
would look beautiful in sorrow. He doubted if Mary s 
face would be pretty in repose. Mary was a windflower, 
much of whose appeal was in its sway and changing 
contour, in the accident of gliding shade and glancing 
light. Changeful and restless, its charm was the illusive¬ 
ness of its charm. Held to tfye glance, it told its 
prettiness swiftly and had no reserve of beauty. 
Bennetta Sard was as a passion flower, tranquil on a 
tranquil spray, into which a man might look and look, 
to which he might return, and yet not exhaust its 
wonder ; a vein, a tint, an emblem was ever miraculously 
new. She had the final gift of beauty, a refined 
intelligence which, showing in a face already beautiful, 
saves it when in repose from being negative beauty, 
and keeps it when vivacious—beauty without intensity. 

Mary did not move to allow him room to enter. 

Arnold raised his eyebrows. 

“ I thought perhaps you >vould guess after a minute, 
she said. 

“ Some trouble on? ” asked Arnold, and his thoughts 
fled among the women watching in groups along the 
Grove. Then he made a sudden step. “ Oh, it’s my 
mother that something’s the matter with. Now tell 
me —tell me. Don’t break things gently. Let me 
come in. Has she—what is it ? 

He stepped in and pushed the door to. It closed 
with a bang which seemed thunderous. 

“ She has been knocked over by a bicycle. The 


CHAPEL GROVE 


115 


doctor is with her now. Mother has gone for the 
district nurse.” 

The doctor’s head appeared round the door to the 
kitchen. “ Be quiet,” he said. 

“ Can I help ? ” he asked. “ I am her son.” 

“ That makes a difference. She is worrying about 
you more than her leg.” 

“ How serious is it, doctor ? ” 

“ The thigh bone is splintered. It would not be so 
serious in a younger woman, but an operation would do 
no good in this case. The bone would not knit; it 
would only be unnecessary pain. How old is your 
mother ? ” 

“ Sixty—er—sixty-eight. I have to reckon up. 
She was forty-four when I was born and I am twenty- 
four. Can I see her now? ” 

“ Yes, but be quiet about it; remember she has had a 
shock beside the pain. And remember she does not 
know the bone is broken; I have only told her the leg 
is sprained.” 

“ But how serious is it ? Is she going to- Is 

she going to-” 

“ Not for a long time yet, if she rests. She has a 
wonderful spirit, and that will help, but she will always 
be bedridden.” 

“ Thank you, doctor. I will go in.” 

At first he could not see her, for the table was between 
him and the mattress which had been placed upon the 
floor to serve for a bed. As he moved around the 
table he saw that she was partly dressed, that she lay 
exhausted with pain—the broken fling-away of an 
unromantic street accident. 

He knelt down beside her. 

He saw the tremulous shadows aquiver round her 
lips, the appeal for him to understand in her beautiful 
grey eyes, over which the lids slowly rose and fell 
wearily with a sweep of shining lashes. He heard the 
miracle of bravery in the checked sobs of her breathing 
as she began to speak, and he was unutterably, unbear¬ 
ably proud of his mother. 




116 


HAMMER MARKS 


He could not speak to her, and she took his silence 
for some vague accusation. 

“ Don’t be cross with me, Arno. I was miserable 
and lonely in the house by myself ; the night seemed 
going on so long and so long. I only went out to buy 
a Mail to read. I don’t mind being left in ; I don’t 
want to spoil your holiday. I did not ask them to 
send for you, Arnold ; it was not me. I shall be all 
right if you go back to your friends. I am going to 
bed in a minute. The doctor says it is only a sprain.” 
The beads of perspiration gathered close upon her 
forehead ; she made a movement with her hand from 
the wrist, as if she intended to do something and had 
forgotten what before it was done. 


Chapter V 


“ Any fear of a job ? ” 

Axnold looked up from his work to the man who had 
come to the door. He bunched his lips and shook his 
head, and said, without cheer, “ You can go through 
and ask the 4 coddy ’ if you like.” 

The man pushed past the pile of scaffolding plant 
which leaned against the door and entered the main 
body of the building, Arnold drew his breath through 
his teeth, as if a thought which he did not want had 
come. He looked at the point of his stencil knife and 
then rubbed it on the inch of oiled India stone at the 
side of his work. 

He was sitting in the pay office of the Sollywell 
Picture House. Upon a table before him was a big 
sheet of glass, and upon that was the sheet of thick 
green paper from which he was cutting a stencil a yard 
square. There were one or two guiding lines on the 
paper, but he made the pattern up as he went along. 
He sharpened the four edges of the little arrowhead of a 
knife and felt the satisfaction of the sharp, cheesy 
cut of it as it sliced through the paper and skated 
cleanly on the bed of glass. The combination of a well- 
edged tool, a graceful design, and unhampered working 
space was his ideal state of work. He lifted the stencil, 
allowing the petals of the Tudor rose which he had just 
cut to fall through. He brushed them from the glass 
with the flat of his hand and resharpened the cutter. 
Then he made swiftly half a dozen ovals for seeds in 
the clasp of a pomegranate-shape. 

“ Any fear of a job ? ” 

Arnold’s knife slipped through a couple of pattern-ties. 


118 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ I shall have to turn that into a poppy head now,” 
he thought, before he looked up. 

In the doorway stood two unemployed painters, true 
to type. One was jovially wrinkled at the corners of 
the eyes, sandy moustached, big, broad, and plumply 
submissive to his body belt; the other was clean¬ 
shaven, lithe, and leanly alert. It was customary for 
painters to hunt work in pairs, and, as if selection of 
opposite attractions guided their choice of mates, 
nearly always one was full figured and cheerful while 
the other was lean and earnest. It was the jocose 
ones who employed the semi-comic, semi-tragic gambit 
of “ Any fear of a job ? ” The earnest, anxiety-driven 
ones opened negotiations with “ Much about ? ” or 
“ Anything doing ? ” 

“ This is the only job we’ve got in,” said Arnold, 
spreading a spot of oil over the stone with his thumb, 
“ and we are squaring this up.” 

“ I think this is the worst winter in the trade there’s 
been,” said the lean one. 

“ Every winter seems the worst when it comes,” 
philosophised the stout one, and smiled without parting 
his lips. “ And yet, when the spring comes, here we 
are to creep out again.” 

He was rather a fine man to look at; ones of the 
rounded type usually were ; they kept the flush of the 
out-of-door work a little longer, and when their cheeks 
sagged a little towards January the modelling of their 
faces was not painful. Their eyes in almost every case 
were blue, and valiant, and English. All through the 
winter their philosophy held something of last summer’s 
success and next summer’s hope ; but the lean one kept 
“ till June December’s snow.” 

The stout man walked up to the cutting table and 
looked at the stencil. “ Cutting all the colours on 
one ? ” he asked. 

“ Mps,” said Arnold. “ The job was finished, 
they’d started to take the scaffolding down, and in 
comes the manager and thinks he’ll have a square 
yard of stencil at the corner of each panel in the ceiling. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


119 


The scaffolders are securing the battings again while I 
cut. They’re opening Monday.” 

“ Poles ? ” 

“No, loose swinging scaffold.” 

“ Got a fag end ? ” asked the stout man. 

Arnold grinned. “ You don’t want to smoke my 
fag ends,” he said, and pulled a packet of cigarettes 
from his pocket. 

“ Good on yer, mate.” 

The lean man took one also, and by way of sham 
thanks said, “ Lucky blighter ! ” 

“ If I was not lucky you would not be,” said Arnold. 

“ You need not be so cocky,” said the lean one. 
“ There’s a long time to go yet before the spring.” 

Arnold was about to tell him he would be probably 
in the same position as the man himself by Monday, 
but he recollected there were possibly excuses for the 
man’s froward bitterness. 

“ In the club ? ” demanded the lean man, concluding 
he had defeated the fortunate one and there now only 
remained the rout. 

“ No, I am not,” said Arnold. 

“ Oh, that’s how you keep your job, is it ? ” 

“ I am paid a penny above foreman’s rate for doing 
decorating, so don’t try and be funny.” 

“ Dry up, Wilks,” said the plump man. “ You are 
singing early. You ain’t ’ad to pawn your watch yet. 
Wait till you’ve put your boots in ticky and then 
there come a fall of snow and you can’t go out and get 
a bob or two snow sweeping.” 

As the men left the room Arnold followed and closed 
the door. The booking office of a theatre or picture 
house and the vestry of a church were set aside for him 
when decorations were in hand, so that he might not 
be disturbed. He had a little boxroom of a designer’s 
office up two flights of stairs above the office and show¬ 
rooms of the firm, but he most often worked where the 
work was in hand. There was not enough actual 
decorating done to keep him continually at that type 
of work. When he was not so employed he was put in 


120 


HAMMER MARKS 


charge of private house work, and once he had superin¬ 
tended the painting of the G.P.O. pillar-boxes. 

The door of the booking office opened, and Teddy 
Bonnington, the foreman in charge, came in. “ How 
are you getting on, Brookey ? ” he asked. Arnold 
was called “ Brookey ” in the trade. “ Who do you 
want to pounce it for you ? ” 

“ Any of the tall chaps—they have not raised the 
scaffold since it was walapered, have they ? Then you 
had better have two of the tall ones, else it will be out 
of their reach for pouncing. Jimmy Dale and one of 
the others.” 

The foreman stood by Arnold watching him cut, 
and began to sing quietly a music-hall song which had 
caught the working-class fancy. 

“ Think it likely, Brookey, that the old firm’s going 
to go bust ? ” 

“ Dunno,” said Arnold glumly. “ I would not lay 
my wages that they are not, Bonn.” 

“ Well, if they do you can say you have four months’ 
holiday in front of you. Brookey, painters never 
ought to marry.” 

Arnold glanced at Teddy Bonnington, who was one of 
the robust type, and a fine specimen. “ I don’t know,” 
he said. “ There are some fine men among them. 
Fine men as animals and good men as mates.” 

Bonnington shuffled with the uneasiness of a work¬ 
man suspecting a compliment from his mate. “ All 
the same,” he said, “ painters ought not to marry. 
There should be a law against consumptives, imbeciles, 
and folks with cancer, and painters marrying.” 

“ It is not proved that cancer is hereditary. And if 
it was, they ought to marry and have children.” 

“Why? ” 

“ See ; a consumptive has five children. It misses 
one of them, and that one has five children; 
and again it’ll skip one of them and he’ll have five 
children ; it ought to skip more than one by then, but, 
anyway, it should be fairly clear for those that come 
after.” 


CHAPEL GROVE 


121 


“ And all the while the others are spreading the 
disease,” said Bonnington. 

“ I don’t care. You look at the thing from the 
positive point of view; I look at the negative and 
reverse it to the positive. You say, or rather you 
mean, men who cannot afford to bring up children 
should not marry. Look at the men who can afford 
to have children ; what do the children do ? Develop 
a town like Birmingstow.” 

“ Shall you marry ? ” 

“ Well, I’m a man ; I suppose I shall,” said Arnold. 
“ Are you sorry you married and got three fine 
youngsters, Bonn ? ” 

“ * * * * the painting trade ! ” said Bonnington by 
way of reply. 

“ Here you are, the stencil’s finished.” The foreman 
took one corner of it and Arnold the other to carry it to 
the theatre. From the steel tie-rods, which spanned the 
arched ceiling, ropes were suspended holding a frame¬ 
work of scaffold-poles, on which was an open pathway 
of planks whereby the whole of the ceiling could be 
reached. This hanging scaffold outlined an area equal 
to that of the ceiling, and was prevented from swaying 
and so falling to pieces by four thick straits of wood, 
which were wedged between the scaffolding and the 
wall, two at either end of the building. The upright 
poles in tubs of earth, which had been necessary for 
security when a number of workmen were painting the 
ceiling, had been taken away before the manager 
decided to have the added ornaments in the corner of 
the panels. 

“ Hey ! Dale—Long-’un ! Put your kit down and 
come and give Brookey a hand,” shouted the foreman. 

Jimmy Dale stroked his varnish brushes off on the 
side of his kettle and put them under a seat, so that 
they should not be kicked over. He commenced to 
sing the last fine of a song as he came near : “ When 
the bells of the old church chime,” which showed that 
he had been singing silently as he worked for some time. 
He climbed the ladder close on Arnold, keeping a raised 


122 


HAMMER MARKS 


hand level with Arnold’s lowered one to protect the 
big stencil which they carried between them. 

Jimmy Dale tried the scaffold with his foot as he 
stood upon it. “ You know they’ve only got this 
packed at the end with a bit of wood ? ” he asked. 

“ It’s safe enough, else Bonnington would not send 
us up,” said Arnold. “ Will you hold the pattern in 
position while I pin it ? ” 

“ All right,” said Jimmy resignedly, “ but I don’t 
want to find myself bump among the empties.” He 
took the pattern in both hands, and, leaning back, 
stretched it on the ceiling above his head. “ I’m in a 
good position if a bit of firewood at the end was to 
drop out, ain’t I ? ” 

Arnold raised himself to his toes and began to stick 
drawing-pins about the stencil to hold it taut. “ What 
would happen if it did drop ? ” 

“ Oh, nothing,” said Jim caustically, “ nothing ; 
only all the scaffold would swing towards where the 
struts dropped out—a good eight feet—and let the 
struts at the other end drop out. Then all the scaffold 
would swing that way back, like a pendulum, and as it 
swung the planks would drop out, and as they dropped 
the poles would slip out of the nooses, but we should 
not see that though ; we should be somewhere on them 
iron-backed chairs below, waiting for the pictures to 
start on Monday. Oh, no, nothing would happen; 
the ropes would still be hanging from the spandrels. 
How long have I got to do the Chinese bend ? ” 

There came a slight crunching sound, the ceiling 
glided above their heads as a landscape seen from a 
train gathering speed; then the ceiling seemed to 
glide back as if the train shunted ; all this before there 
came the crash of the struts smashing the rails of the 
orchestra enclosure. Arnold had a glimpse of Jimmy 
Dale with hands trailing along the ceiling away from 
the pattern, gliding as the scaffolding glided ; his own 
hands were over his head holding a pin. Time seemed 
casual and unhurried in the stupefaction of alarm. A 
grinding wrench beneath their feet, shouts, a wheeling 


CHAPEL GROVE 


123 


of poles, and an eddying of planks, as if the whole 
scaffold was a giant raft breaking to pieces in the 
current of a rapid, and space—space and the mind 
standing still, watching instead of thinking and telling 
what to do. 

Arnold snatched at space as he flashed downward. 
He felt a terrible wrench upon his wrists ; a crack of 
muscles at his shoulders ; and the instinctive locking 
of his fingers over a steel rod. It was the spandrel 
which he had gripped in passing. Then his wrists 
seemed to be struck in two as his mate flung a desperate 
hold upon him, secured a grip, and stretched their two 
bodies taut with the weight of his coming down. And 
at that agonising moment the crash below shook the 
building. 

Jimmy Dale had an elbow over one of Arnold’s 
shoulders and one arm under his armpits, his hands 
gripping clothing. Arnold’s mind was in his wrists. 

The constant brushwork had made his wrists the 
strongest part of his body. The clothing began to 
tear. Jimmy gave a jerk and a drop, and locked his 
hands. “ For God’s sake hold tight, Jim,” said Arnold. 

At length men came with ladders and guided Jimmy 
Dale’s feet to the rungs. With the taking away of 
Jimmy’s weight Arnold almost loosed his grip, so 
painful was the relief. Arnold climbed down the ladder, 
and Bonnington chafed his wrists until he had the 
normal lack of sensation in possessing them. 

“ The boss will go mad when he sees this,” muttered 
the foreman. 

“ What are you going to do about it ? ” 

“ Nothing. What can I do? Half the chairs and 
fittings in the place are smashed ; every wall is marked ; 
it looks like an earthquake. Feel all right, mate ? ” 

“ Ar. Don’t move the ladder. I’m going up just 
once, to get my nerve back. Coming up, Jim ? ” 
asked Arnold. 

“ Couldn’t. Not if you gave me your hatful of 
Jimmy-o’-Goblins.” 

“ I should go up, Jim,” advised the men. “ You 


124 


HAMMER MARKS 


know what it is if you don’t. You never get your 
nerve back for any height if you don’t go up straight 
on top of it.” 

“ All right. Go up first, Brookey,” said Jimmy 
Dale. 

Arnold went up the ladder where it leaned on the 
spandrel, then he climbed through and stood upon the 
spandrel itself. It is quite usual for the men to walk 
the spandrel, steadying themselves with the flat of their 
hands pressed to the ceiling ; custom had made height 
of no account. Arnold made a step or two in that 
manner. 

“ Remember your wrists are not up to their usual,” 
called the foreman from below. 

“ Thanks for the tip, Bonn,” said Arnold. He 
walked to the middle of the ceiling, returned, and 
reached to ease the pins from the stencil. He let the 
stencil hang as a sheet before him, took out the last 
few pins, and carried it down. The foreman took it, 
Jimmy Dale looked at the ladder, shook his head, and 
began to take ofi his overalls as he picked his way 
from the theatre. 

There were about fifteen workmen gathered among 
the wreckage, but none had been struck by the falling 
timber. “ Don’t touch anything,” said the foreman. 
“ Let the boss see it just as it is. It is about his time 
for coming. There will be little hell to pop when he 
does come.” 

There was a stir among the chattering mob of people 
who had come from the street and gathered at the 
door. The workmen waited, according to their kind, 
in self-effacement; one or two pretended to be busy, 
picking up things and putting them down. Bonnington 
jumped over a staggering row of chair-backs from which 
the seats had been knocked and made headway towards 
the door. Arnold sat down on a pole and scratched his 
ear. 

“ What’s this ? ” demanded the startled employer, 
letting his eyes travel over the shattered foreground. 
“You-lot of fools, put your coats on and pack your 



CHAPEL GROVE 


125 


bags. Stop, Bonnington. I shall want yon—and the 
scaffolder ! ” 

According to their kind, the men began to whistle. 
Arnold looked at the wreckage. It seemed a setting 
fitly arranged to justify the employer’s lapse into forceful 
English. 

Arnold spoke to no one as he got clear of the theatre 
and into the street. He had never made a friend of any 
of his workmates, and it pleased him not to have to 
exchange condolences and complainings with them now. 
He knew sufficient of unemployment to know that most 
of the men of his trade lost their self-respect when 
they lost their work. It appeared to him that their 
self-respect was a fancy vest, easily slipped on and off 
with the smiling or clouding of sunny fortune, whereas 
with him it was a protective garment worn next his 
sensibilities always. He knew that if he lingered with 
the men the flare of their combined, cavilling impotence 
would react upon him until all his ideas for the future 
would be panic-stricken as horses in a burning stable. 
His was not a nature which found relief in an exuberance 
of self-pity. 

Despondent, dulled of mental energy, blunted of 
initiative, lacking a finger-post, he reached Chapel 
Grove. And there was quiet. As he opened the 
front door he called softly, “ It’s only me,” in case his 
mother should be waking or sleeping. She did not 
reply, so it was to be assumed she slept. He sat down 
on a parlour chair with his arm on the dresser which 
had been converted to a bookcase. The room was 
different to others in Chapel Grove, more by reason of 
the things which it did not contain rather than those 
which it did. The walls were not covered with photo¬ 
graphs and souvenirs of Blackpool in frames of seashells 
or velvet. They were rather bare of pictures ; papered 
in pattern stripe of brown and fawn from a picture-rail 
run round level with the door-top, and with the frieze 
and ceiling cream, they looked well inside the lines of 
good taste. The furniture was not ornamental, and 
ornaments had been got rid of in so far as vases, cushions, 


126 


HAMMER MARKS 


dangling cloths with lace on, and all the other dust 
accumulators beloved in Chapel Grove were concerned. 
It was the lack of things which pleased in the room. 

Arnold looked round the room with its negative 
ornamentation. More of his mother’s personality 
than his own was expressed in the room. He had 
bought none of the household furniture. Everything 
was from his father’s and mother’s first home. But 
he felt there was a difference in the room to-day ; 
chairs were set cornerwise in the angles ; the carpet 
square was turned round a different way ; someone had 
stayed in the room, and it was changed. Of course, it 
was Mary. Few things are so ready to take alteration 
from unwitting strangers as living-rooms ; few things 
so easily are turned from their original and fundamental 
scheme as a designed room. Arnold had discovered 
that when first he had drawn up schemes of decoration 
for the customers of the Paintplex Decorating 
Company. He had entered into the work as an idealist, 
thinking that by leaving an atmosphere of art in a 
Birmingstow home he was, although in little, helping 
the city to prepare for fulfilment of her boast of culture. 
And he had seen that after a household had once had 
breakfast in a wedgwood room and nailed up a 
hunting scene pipe-rack, it suggested nothing ; but that 
when they had. had ten breakfasts it would begin to 
take personality and suggest something more like a 
nasturtium room. Arnold had swerved from ideals in 
his work. A customer was capable of anything 
would put a bouquet of orchids in a russet room which 
asked for mignonette. 

Mary had moved in the parlour, and it was different; 
not better, not worse ; different. So it was in the 
household. Mary threw in a suggestion of control and 
kept balance. Arnold did not know what state the 
house would have been reduced to if Mary had not 
been so marvellously kind—inexplicably kind. At 
first, when she had spent each evening in the week 
attending to his mother and her week-ends in shopping 
and “ putting the house to rights,” he thought she did it 


CHAPEL GROVE 


127 


partly as an excuse to escape from her own home, but 
he saw later that it was because she was fond of his old 
mother. Mrs. Raddle showed the best side of her nature 
in the Brookes’ distress. She sanctioned Mary’s 
assistance. She herself came in during the daytime 
at intervals and obeyed the behests of the district 
nurse. But Mary’s devotion to his mother seemed so 
deep that Arnold believed there must be other causes 
besides his mother’s quiet charm. 

He had said to Bonnington, “Well, I’m a man ; I 
suppose I shall marry.” Now as he looked at the chairs 
across the corners of the room he thought, not of she 
who had touched them, but of Bennetta Sard ; thought 
of her with slow misery, and then passed to the sepret 
room of his heart and touched the spring of memory, and 
entered. He stayed but a little while—long enough 
to turn the picture of Bennetta Sard face to the 
wall. 

“ I’m a man ; I suppose I shall marry some time,” 
he said, rising. “When I get work again.” Without 
thinking what he was doing he crossed to the chairs 
and pushed them with his knee to their customary 
position against the wall. He walked to the kitchen. 
It led from the parlour by a little passage confined in 
length to the width of the pantry under the stairs. 
The light in the kitchen was divided and toned by a 
high folding screen which hid the bed under the window. 

He laid back a fold of the screen to see if indeed his 
mother was sleeping. He did not drop his glance to 
the bed ; he looked through the window. It faced on 
to a bricked yard, shut in by boards, and beyond was a 
tousled garden. Half-way along the yard his mother 
was clinging to the corner brickwork. Her face was 
grey and her eyelids were slowly sinking. 

He stood riveted to the spot by the horror of the 
picture in his mind—the picture of a broken bone 
crossing and recrossing its splinters in a living thigh 
as she had made progress to where she now stood. He 
could not move an inch to reach her, although she was 
about to fall; power of movement had left him. 


128 


HAMMER MARKS 


She had dressed herself clumsily and worked her feet 
into slippers, and, although now exhausted, her frail 
face was graved with strong lines of endurance and 
dauntlessness by her masterly will. Her eyes closed 
completely ; her face lost all its strength in pitiful 
defeat; and she sank towards the wall. Arnold was 
petrified. He could not move —he could not. 

He heard steps in the passage, the door opened, and 
Mary entered the yard. She rushed and picked his 
mother from the wall. She began to scold and pet the 
invalid, and, as if a gentle dew should dissolve a metal 
which pain of acid could not even stain, Arnold’s 
mother trembled to tears—tears of impotency ; the 
first he had known her shed. 

He hurried out then. His mother had never seemed 
so little before. He found which way was safe and best 
to lift her, and carried her into the house and rested her 
upon the bed. He rose from her couch in silence and 
walked into the scullery, and wrestled with his emotion 
until it was thrown and his foot was upon it. 

Mary was giving a little brandy and water to his 
mother, who looked like a child in disgrace at Arnold 
when he entered. He sat on the end of the box fender 
which touched the bed and rested his elbow upon the 
pillow. 

“ Why did you do it, mother ? ” he asked. “Why 
did you ? ” 

“ If I never make a start I’ll never get about again. 
I must learn to get about. I am a nuisance to myself 
and everybody else like this. If it’s rheumatics follow¬ 
ing on a sprain, as the doctor says it is, it’s sure to hurt 
if I walk on it; but if I don’t walk it will grow stiff, 
and I shall lose the use of it altogether.” She seemed 
to be asking a question or answering one ; anything but 
making a statement. She sighed, the thin sigh of 
absolute exhaustion. 

A dark mass out side the window; it was Mrs. 
Raddle. She flattened her face to the pane to see who 
was within. She entered, and examined each one with 
a glance. “ Mm! ” she ejaculated, and then with 


CHAPEL GROVE 129 

heavy jocularity said to the invalid, “ Glad he’s come 
home early, ain’t yer ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Arnold’s mother. 

Mrs. Raddle regarded her stepdaughter. “ I heard 
yer come up the hollow entry,” she said sourly. “You 
couldn’t come into your own home first to save your 
blessed fife could yer? If I was you I’d bring me bed here.” 

This was the type of garrulousness which Arnold 
wished to avoid in his home. He had no knowledge as 
to whether Mary was a girl of spirit who would prolong 
the engagement, or whether, by quietly accepting 
immediate defeat, she would defeat conquest. 

“No occasion to bring my bed,” she said. “ I 
could sleep at the side of Mrs. Brooke. I’d be near in 
the night then. I have thought about it before. I 
think I will. I shall; a man’s not the proper person to 
do everything.” 

“ Oh, indeed,” said her stepmother. “ Who’s going 
to give house-room to your falderals while you do the 
Florence Nightingale here ? Suppose you’ll be running 
in and out all hours for ’em. I suppose you think I 
don’t do enough ; you have to come home afore your 
time, and the dress shops busy keeping all hands over¬ 
time.” Mary worked as a ladies’ tailoress. 

“ They are that busy they can do without me,” said 
Mary. “ I’ve told them so this afternoon. You’ve 
never been a mother to me, and now I’ve found one. 
I’m going to see her right before I leave her. I know 
about Mr. Brooke and all that; but it’s his mother’s 
house, and she’s asked me.” 

“ If it was me who had had me leg broke-” began 

Mrs. Raddle, and stopped, alarmed at what she had 
said. Three pairs of eyes glanced rapidly at Mrs. 
Brooke. But the exertion had exhausted her; she 
was unconscious. 

“Not that it ’ud ’a mattered,” said Mrs. Raddle. 
“ Her knows ; her’s known all along her leg was broke, 
only her ain’t let on so as to stop you worrying.” 

“ She could not have known,” expostulated Arnold. 
“ She walked on it this afternoon.” 

Ih 



130 HAMMER MARKS 

“ Did her ? And what’s that prove ? ” demanded 
Mrs. Raddle. 

“ That she did not know her leg was broken or she 
would not have had the foolish courage,” said Arnold, 
a great fear in his mind that it might not prove it. 

Mrs. Raddle pushed by Mary, who was attending the 
invalid, and, laying her hand out in space as if it rested 
on the top of an invisible pedestal near Arnold’s chin 
she snapped, “ If you don’t understand your mother by 
now, you never will.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked Arnold, tensely. 

“ I mean, her don’t want to be a trouble to you ; 
and you ain’t worth it.” She withdrew from the house 
in a chariot of accomplishment. 


Chapter VI 


In the weeks which followed Mary’s decision to make 
her habitation in Mrs. Brooke’s house Arnold had ample 
opportunity to consider what kind of a girl she was, 
what kind of a woman she would grow into under fair 
conditions and unfortunate ones, and what type of wife 
she would make. He considered her dispassionately, 
almost as if he were selecting a wife for a well-wished 
friend in whom he was only slightly more interested 
than in the girl he examined. 

Once that he realised that he was critical of Mary, he 
arrested the progress of examination to ask himself why. 
As one side of his brain asked the question, the other 
side answered it in dual thought. “ I am a man, I 
must marry some day or other. But it is rather 
abominable to be so cold-blooded about it.” 

“ What of love should I forgo if I rule my choice by 
commonsense selection ? There is love like heroines 
and heroes have ; that rather spectacular, all-in-all 
love, which sells novels. I can afford to lose that. I 
have loved Bennetta in a grander way, and I do not 
admire the novelette brand. The fact that it struggles 
for similar love in return takes away its crown. The 
fact that it puts possession as its highest reward places 
it on the level of calculating impulses. It is flesh- 
mercenary—three parts passion and one part spiritual 
vanity. I doubt if it will survive the test of possession ; 
it burns itself away in flame, beautiful dazzling flame, 
before it has lit the coals of life. So much for the 
grande passion. I shall miss that easily if I wed Mary. 
I could not feel like that towards her. I doubt if I 
could feel like that towards any woman. That type of 
love may be safely left to poets and book writers. It 


132 


HAMMER MARKS 


would last the length of time of a book writing if it was 
not satisfied before the last chapter was in the author’s 
brain. I am glad that that love exists ; I would not 
read a book that has not got it for its basis ; but in life 
I have loved Bennetta Sard in a nobler way. 

“ Then should I forgo that everyday love which makes 
for the happiest marriages if I wed Mary ? No. That 
is just what I should be getting. Let me go over the 
steps to be sure. A man comes to the time when, 
because he is a man, he desires to marry, or to the time 
when he feels the early promptings. He likes several 
girls. Any of them would permanently please the 
animal in him. He distrusts those that please it most; 
he wants a spiritual and mental companion incorporated 
in with the private companion. That limits his selec¬ 
tion. He also wants a helpmate according to circum¬ 
stances, a housewife or a hostess according to his finances, 
and in any case he wants a healthy woman—for that 
type of love—the hundred per cent, love of a man 
wishful to be a goodly husband. This limits his choice 
again to a smaller number—he does not know how his 
love selection works any more than the novelette lover— 
and of the smaller number one or other has a little trait 
which catches his particular fancy, or he courts one for 
a time and changes over to another. He meets little 
things in the girl’s character which he had not expected ; 
they surprise him ; he or she give way upon the points, 
religious or what not; the girl becomes a habit to him, 
and then a necessity, and then a wife. They are married. 
Then comes the battle between all the things which the 
common sense of the commonsense mate-seekers has 
prompted them to hide from each other before, but 
which they no longer choose to hide. There are about 
two years’ miserable struggling, which, if their common 
sense survives, gives place to the real, beautiful know¬ 
ledge of each other’s failings—happiness which has to 
be earned. It is a greater love than the other ; it is 
ignorant and enduring ; no roses are red enough to 
wreath it. And the struggle does not always last 
years ; often there is a blessing which shortens the time 


CHAPEL GROVE 


133 


before the realisation of love comes—a child, or poverty, 
or trouble. 

“ I know that I should not miss that love with Mary. 
She is fast becoming a habit. She bears with me now in 
poverty. But—should—I—lose—great—love ; that for 
which there is no argument; that which I have for 
Bennetta ? Never. Never can I lose that. If ever 
I marry, whatever life deals to me, I shall have that 
mystery of love in my heart. I have never thought on 
marriage with Bennetta Sard. It is enough that I 
love her. Because I am a man I shall marry—marry 
someone else—and still have that love for Bennetta 
Sard. I do not love her with my body, no more than a 
man loves God with his body. I do not love her with 
my mind no more than that either. ‘ Soul ’ is a word 
that has been stuck on every bit of emotional furniture 
like an auction-room label, but that is the nearest that 
I can get to what in me loves Bennetta Sard ; that 
which, if my body were torn open and my heart laid 
bare, would rush straight through space to her to see 
if she were happy. I know no other kinds of love. 

“ I do not care what the world would say of a man 
placed like me claiming to be an authority on love, but 
I have loved in the holiest fashion. I cannot consider 
love for anyone else except by comparison. To con¬ 
template any other of her sex brings my thoughts direct 
to her.” 

Arnold did not expect great connubial bliss whomever 
he married. He gained too much insight into middle 
and working class matrimonial matters to hope for that. 
He gained the knowledge in the course of his daily work, 
which took him within the covering walls of hundreds 
of homes in the course of a year. Reticent of revealing 
incompatibility before servants as a misallied middle 
class man and wife are, they do not often practise smiling 
subterfuge before the workman in the house ; possibly 
because decorative and repair work provide a bone of 
contention between them—taste versus taste ; orna¬ 
ment versus comfort; luxury versus thrift; “ a cham 
pagne taste versus a gin income ” ; the woman wants 


134 


HAMMER MARKS 


what the man can do without, the man wants what 
the woman not only can do without, but what she 
strongly objects to, and the workman feels the double 
pull, even if he is not called on to arbitrate by providing 

trade experience. ., J , Al , 

Possibly the paperhanger in the midst of the work¬ 
man’s family gains so much insight as to the position 
of marital affairs because every man and his wife show 
the worst sides of their natures when the domestic 
hearth is upset. So many people lose their presence of 
dissembling when the house is not as it is accustomed to be. 

Possibly also a workman is not considered worthy of 
deluding, because he only enters a household for a few 
days of a lifetime and would not be likely to carry 
impressions to anyone who would matter. 

In the lower levels of Birmingstow society, far from 
the workman in their midst being a creature from whom 
knowledge had to be throttled down, he was welcomed as 
an escape valve to let free pent-up sense of injuries. 
No spot of a house was sacred from the workman ; he 
had to paint the corner where the rubbish was swept, 
to whitewash underneath the shelf where the empty 
bottles were thrust; to hang paper on every wall that 
hid the man and woman from the man and woman next 
door. When he had done this he had to go and meet 
in similar circumstances the man next door on either 
side. So that when he left the vicinity of the home 
where knowledge of it had been thrust, or had thrust 
itself, upon him, whatever remained unknown, the bad 
did not. Then, as if for comparison, he had to go to 
another house, and then to the minister’s, and then the 
shopkeeper’s, and then the public-house at the corner, 
and then the house where lived the man’s foreman, and 
then the home of the woman’s charwoman; week in 
week out, hundreds and hundreds of Birmingstow homes 
telling themselves to his reflective nature, as if he were 
a librarian who scamped reading of all the books which 
his work made him notice. 

This servant-knowledge, eye-at-the-keyhole informa¬ 
tion, made Arnold deduce that a man should marry, 


CHAPEL GROVE 


135 


but should not expect perennial happiness to follow; 
that it would profit his happiness to obtain children as 
soon as possible ; that he should not unduly fear poverty 
if love gave him happiness, love being a plant which 
thrived in stony soil; that a man should marry in his 
own class ; that it was trifles and not things of para- 
mount importance which made for disaster , that if he 
could bear with trifles for two years he could win to 


contentment. , , _ . , . 

To this philosophy of marriage he had always put m 
parenthesis, “ Everything depends upon the fitness of 
the woman to be a particular man’s wife ; the wrong 
woman upsets every calculation. Respect on both 
sides must be there. Love is sometimes a handicap 
to married happiness. If it is there on both sides before 
marriage, it will need to he pulled down and rebuilt on 
a new plan to something which meets better the require- 
ments of a married couple. No woman is an angel; be 
grateful if she can cook and keep a house clean and leave 
you alone when you want to be left alone. 

Mary proved in a week that she could cook and keep 
a house clean and not demand a preoccupied mans 
attention. To Arnold, she seemed the right woman for 
the working man. He pitied her or any woman who 
married him, for, in addition to his having so paltry 
a trade in his fingers, his impulses were confined in the 
circle of the artistic temperament which enclosed love 
instead of love enclosing the temperament. He pitied 
the woman he should marry, because there was so much 
of love he could not give. Bennetta Sard would always 
possess his spiritual love. Fortunately, few wives 
valued that love, even if they did insist that it went not 
elsewhere ; fortunately also they did not look for it, 
or signs of it coming to or going from them ; they were 
so busy guarding all the other loves but that one love. 
Arnold deemed that he could give Mary these lesser 
loves, amounting to the everyday love which makes 
for happy marriage. 

As Arnold saw Mary with his mother a new revelation 
of woman’s nobleness came to him. She was patient, 


136 


HAMMER MARKS 


tender, and yet ever controlling with a wise control. 
No task of nursing was so ignoble that affection for his 
mother did not make it sacred. She knew nothing 
of nursing but what is given to woman instinctively. 
She learned the first duty of the heroic profession—to 
smile and be cheerful. 

On the day that Mary had found his mother standing 
in the yard Mrs. Brooke had a stroke which paralysed the 
right side, so that there was no fear of her attempting 
to walk again. The paralysis reached towards her 
brain, and she wandered in her mind, reverting to past 
times in her life of which Arnold knew nothing. She 
mistook Mary and Arnold for various people she had 
known as a child, and in these wanderings she was 
happy. She must have had a happy childhood. 

It was well that Mrs. Brooke did not know the distress 
that was in her house. Arnold had no work, and could 
obtain none. There was a little, very little money that 
his mother had set by at the time of her husband’s 
death for a purpose—that she might be buried with him. 
That was altar gold, not to be touched for lesser purposes. 

Mary seemed to have marvellous method and discre¬ 
tion in laying out money. Arnold was unable to give 
her any after his week’s wages following the day of the 
picture-house accident, yet there was no lack of 
necessities, only careful avoidance of waste, and Arnold 
burned with shame when he ate. It seemed to him at 
the end of a month that the money must have gone, and 
his mother’s store as well. He trembled with fear of 
asking Mary if it was so, but he knew that the indecision 
of not knowing how many counters of food-buying, 
rent-paying silver were left was worse than the actual 
knowledge. 

He knew he must ask. He asked upon a Monday 
morning—the morning that the weekly rent became 
due. The rent was only seven shillings and threepence ; 
it was not much : it was a formidable sum. Mrs. Brooke 
had never had a debt in her fife. If by reason of the 
rent collector’s calling at irregular times she had missed 
him, sh§ would travel to the estate agents’ office in the 


CHAPEL GROVE 


137 


centre of the city, often at great inconvenience, that 
the entry might be made in her rent-book on the correct 
date ; yet she knew that it would not have mattered if 
she had been a month in arrears. She kept her series 
of green cardboard rent-books, from her ear best married 
year to this, in a stack with variegated green edges 
beside the family Bible upon the round mahogany 
table, where anyone could take them up and see the 
perfect record. Each stiff card was a chapter of the 
novel of her life, a book which only she could read. 

The entries in the yellowish-green card wrote her 
most arduous chapter. The entries in copying pencil 
were made when she had the money ready ; those in 
ink were made when she had not been able to get the 
rent until late in the day, and had had it entered at the 
office desk. In that chapter was the period where her 
husband had been thrown out of work, and where he 
made wooden clothes-horses, with hinges of webbing, 
in the attic. As she read it she heard the muffled 
hammering while she was rubbing in the tub the washing 
that she was taking in. In that chapter was the jam 
smell of brown sugar which she was boiling to toffee, to 
put in the front window and sell in farthingworths at 
eight ounces a penny ; the pungent smell of troach, the 
cleanly smell of peppermint as the rock was pulled 
white on a hook on the door. There was a piece of 
that chapter written nearly all in ink ; it was where 
five pounds had been paid for the toffee recipes, the 
stone to roll the toffee on, and instruction in making. 
She could have had all the entries following in copying 
pencil had she decided to depart from her principle. 
She had been offered quantities of sugar on trust, but 
she preferred to buy a pound, make it into toffee, and 
sell it quickly, and buy another pound, until at the end 
of a day, with six or seven boilings, she had enough for 
three pounds ; and so increased until at the end of the 
week she had enough for many pounds of sugar, but had 
to start with one pound again because the rent was due. 

And in that chapter her first-child Richard was 
born. 


138 


HAMMER MARKS 


The next chapter—a grass-green rent-book—was 
torn ; that was little Richard. In that chapter she 
heard people passing the door and saying, “ Oh, what 
a lovely little crater ! ” 

The next chapter was also grass green. It might 
have been signed at the doorstep on a rainy day, for 
the entries were blurred with a hundred drops. There 
were the most terrible of her entries in that book. It 
was in ink. She had taken the book to the office and 
left Richard in charge of a neighbour. The book had 
been signed. When she was away, Richard—beautiful 
limbed, curly, golden-headed, honey-singing little 
Richard—had been allowed to fall down a Sight of 
stairs and was killed. And the next entry was terrible 
with a different smite ; her husband had taken suddenly 
to drink. His son had been too dearly loved to be 
broken without his being broken also. A less loving 
father might have waited for another son. The best 
men have only one strand in their character, and the 
one strand of Richard’s father was snapped. The 
mother, left with that great, crying, reaching impulse 
of the bereft mother, had the great heart-sobbing child 
who was her husband to cloak with her otherwise useless, 
protective mother love. For many years a world of 
souls bemused by discipline looked on and did not know 
how fine a man Jeffry Brooke was, and some of them 
never knew. 

There was a chapter—a rent-book green as green 
ink new upon the paper—which opened with a thought 
of a happiness. Arnold was promised to be born, and 
Jeffry Brooke, turning back to his innate nobleness, 
squired his chivalry of heart once more, never handled 
a tankard again, and waited for a son. Arnold was 
born, born of a father who had no little faults and could 
do that with his great fault—throw it in a single bout. 
And in that chapter it was written that his fouijdation 
came too late to build upon ; it was found that he had a 
cancer. 

All of that novel was written for Arnold’s mother to 
read in the variegated stack of cardboards. It was 


CHAPEL GROVE 139 

written for her to read elsewhere —in the nature of 
Arnold. 

On this Monday morning Arnold walked into the 
parlour to think. He picked up the top rent-book, 
shook it open, glanced at it, replaced it. He bit his 
lip at the side and tried with intent thought to fathom 
fate. He had not inherited from his mother her pride 
of being debt-free, but he had her dread of a hanging 
debt, small or large. He knew that he must find out 
what money was to hand, or if none. 

He passed into the kitchen. He glanced to see if 
his mother was awake or conscious. The bed was under 
the window, and the head of it was against the grained 
cupboard fixture, so that his mother could see through 
the window when she wished without being raised. His 
mother’s eyes were open, and she was gazing at the 
ceding abstractedly. Her white silk hair was parted 
in the middle of her forehead and lay in two heavy 
plaits, one over either shoulder and the counterpane. 
Arnold knew now how beautiful her face was. By the 
grandeur of her profile she might have been an old 
marchioness ; there was dignity in each fine, and beauty 
in the whole. Her tranquil grey eyes glowed without 
verve—great, child-loving eyes that had the beauty 
of their own childhood restored. 

The fingers of her one hand were moving among the 
folds of the bedspread. Arnold turned to Mary, who 
was ironing on the table. He whispered, 4(1 Isn’t it 
supposed to be a bad sign when they pluck at the 
counterpane ? ” 

“ She is sewing,” said Mary. 

Arnold looked. It was not the movement of the 
imaginary needle which he was used to seeing. Mary 
laid the iron on the upturned saucer to prevent scorching 
the cloth. She knelt beside the bed, and, stroking the 
worn, slim fingers, said, “ How are you getting on with 
it, mother ? ” 

“ I’m fetching the tacking threads out,” said Arnold’s 
mother. She paused in her imagined task and felt 
about the bedspread, then, seeming to find what she 


140 


HAMMER MARKS 


sought, she said, “ Here is a pin.” Mary made move¬ 
ment as if she took it. “ Here is another,” said Arnold’s 
mother. 

Arnold moved. “ Is that my Arno ? ” asked his 
mother. 

“ Yes, mother,” said Arnold, glad that she knew him 
again. Mary moved so that Arnold could take her 
place. 

“ Can I help you, mother ? ” he asked. 

“ Yes, thread me this needle,” she begged. “ Your 
eyes are younger than mine, and my other hand has 
gone to sleep. I don’t know what has come over it 
lately.” 

He pretended to take a needle from between her thumb 
and finger and made the movements of threading it 
where she could see his hands, and assumed to place it 
between her fingers again. Then he kissed her while 
she knew it was him. 

“ Will you turn the lamp up, Arnie ? I can hardly 
see,” she said. “ I think it’s warmed the chimney 
by now.” 

He went to the gas bracket and fumbled there with 
his fingers. “ Is that better ? ” he asked, but she was 
either asleep or unconscious. 

Mary was sprinkling water on the bone-dry sheet 
before she ironed it. She was wearing a thin black 
overall kind of dress on which there were twinklings 
of black beads in an antler pattern at the opening for 
the neck, and it made Mary’s face seem a little haggard. 
There was pale pansy shading beneath her eyes, and her 
cheeks were stroked thinner than they had been. There 
were shallows in her face, but her mouth did not droop. 

“ Has mother any money left ? ” asked Arnold. 

Mary picked the iron up from before the fire and held 
it to her cheek to test the warmth. She gave Arnold 
a swift glance as the iron flushed her cheek. Then she 
laid the iron before the bars of the grate again and 
shook her head. 

“ What time does the rent man come,” asked Arnold 
tiredly. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


141 


“ Nigh on twelve.” 

“ I have not a thing left to sell. I cannot give my 
pictures away at any price, however I try.” 

“ No ; times are bad,” said Mary, but she did not sigh. 

Arnold turned to the stair door in the corner. He 
hesitated with the knob in his hand. “ Do we owe 
anybody anything for food and stuff yet ? ” 

“ No,” said Mary. “ We are on the safe side so far.” 

Arnold went up the stairs. When he returned he 
had brown paper parcels under his arms. Mary was 
not in the kitchen, and he did not call to her as he left 
the house. 

Despite the awkwardness of carrying the bundles 
of clothes under his arms, he walked far from his own 
district before he decided on which pawnbroker’s shop 
to enter. He went to the one at the corner of Brail 
Street and Cotton Lane. He walked swiftly down the 
street and almost leapt into the lane, as if he had stolen 
goods upon him. Once in the lane he slunk along to 
the side-entrance of the pawnbroker’s shop, flung a 
hunted look to either end of the lane to see if any 
acquaintance or stranger was witness to his shame and 
degradation, and pushed into the cubicle marked 
“ Loan Office.” 

It was gratifyingly dark in the cubicle. The smell 
of the shop suggested a rag doll soaked all night in 
gutter-water. There was a wooden partition on one 
side and a woman’s head and hat came round the end 
inquisitively from the next cubicle. She was evidently 
a customer, for she dodged back as Arnold bumped 
the bundles on the counter. He began to take off his 
overcoat. A whiskered man, looldng like a circus 
performer—the Kidglove Liontamer—came up from 
a trap in the floor. He poked his finger into the parcel 
and said, “ What y’r got ? ” 

“ Three suits and an overcoat,” said Arnold. 

“ No good ! ” said the man. 

“ No good ? They are,” said Arnold. 

“No good to me, anyway. Nor to anybody else as 
keeps a loan office. None of ’em are taking any more 


142 


HAMMER MARKS 


clothes in. The place gets choked up with ’em. It’s 
right enough. You’ll find everybody’s refusing them 
now.” 

“ Will you take pictures ? ” asked Arnold. 

“Not me. Look at the stuff in the window, if you 
want to know what’s wanted.” 

Arnold plucked at the strings which bound the 
bundles. Then he shrugged, and, picking them up, 
came out to the narrow confines of Cotton Lane. The 
church clocks chimed twelve. It came to Arnold’s 
mind that Mary would think he had purposely absented 
himself from the house at the time the rent-collector 
was expected, on purpose to avoid the unpleasant task. 

“ Look here,” he said to the man, “ you don’t mind 
if I leave these parcels for a while, do you ? I want to 
get home quick.” 

“ Throw ’em 6ver,” said the man. Arnold did so 
and hurried out. 

It seemed to him of paramount importance that 
Mary, who shouldered so much of his responsibilities, 
should not condemn him for the cowardice of avoiding 
an irksome interview which there was no necessity for 
him to leave to her. 

As he entered the house he came upon Mary in the 
parlour. “ Has the rent man been ? ” he asked. 

“ Yes,” she said. 

Arnold relaxed his limbs; he sagged into a chair and 
tapped his foot against the fender. “ What did he 
say ? ” he asked. 

“ Nothing,” replied Mary. 

“ Nothing ! ” exclaimed Arnold in amazement, leaning 
forward in the chair. “ Old Squeaky Poltney said 
nothing ? Didn’t he ask you why we could not pay ? ” 

“No.” She turned her head right away from him, 
and her fingers plucked at the jet beads on her breast, 
wrenching them off, letting them spatter to the floor. 

Arnold jumped up from his seat and whisked the 
top rent-book from the pile. He scanned it and clasped 
it together in his one hand. The rent had been paid. 

Arnold walked slowly round to where Mary stood. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


143 


With a touch he stayed her fingers from plucking the 
beads. She moved a step backwards, and, putting her 
hands to her face, began to cry quietly, as if she were 
a chidden child. 

He waited for a minute—a full minute—and then he 
said, “ Mary, you paid the rent out of your own pocket. 
Did you ? ” 

She nodded. 

“ You have been keeping this house going for a week 
or more. Have you ? ” 

Again she nodded. She sought about her dress for a 
handkerchief, but could not find one. He found his 
and passed it to her, and she dried her cheeks. 

“ Mary,” he said, looking down upon her, “ when I 
am in work again will you marry me ? ” 

“ I was afraid you would think I did it for that when 
you found out,” said Mary, crumpling the handkerchief 
into a ball. “ I did not! I did not! I did it because 
your mother is lovely. She’s just like having one 
myself.” 

“ I know you did not do it for that. I ask at an 
unfortunate moment. I have meant to ask you for a 
long time, only I have so little to offer, and there is 
so much trouble about. But will you marry me ? I 
think we ought to be happy—given a fair chance.” 

“ But you don’t love me, and you know you don’t,” 
said Mary. 

Arnold was beginning to be rather puzzled by the 
girl. She was no longer tearful. She made her last 
statement with as little emotion as if they were discussing 
what blacking was best for giving a polish to boots. 

“ What makes you think that ? ” he asked. 

“ It’s true. You don’t love me. You treat me too 
much as if you were a gentleman for that.” 

“ Mary ! ” exclaimed Arnold, shocked. “ You do 
not mean that I treat you as if you were a servant ? ” 

“ No ! No, no. I mean you treat me as if I were 
your mother’s daughter but not your sister. But under 
any circumstances I could not marry you. I am 
engaged to marry Mr. Carrol. I am going out to 


144 HAMMER MARKS 

Canada to him in the spring. So you see I could not 
marry you.” 

A great flaming of momentary happiness burst m 
Arnold’s heart. He knew in this moment, when his 
suit was rejected, what it would have taken him slow 
years to find out if his suit had been accepted—that, 
loving Bennetta Sard as he did, he would know no 
true joy with any other woman. That life could be 
bearable for him without her only if he lived it alone. 

Then swiftly came the realisation of the debt he was 
under to Mary. He started as the thought swept upon 
him. “ We cannot go on taking your money off you, 
Mary,” he said. “ I don’t expect you have much, and 
what you have you will need when you go over there. 

“ I won’t,” said Mary. “ Listen. It’s worth all I 
have to get away from my stepmother for a month or 
two. I intended to do it another way before Mr. 
Carrol and I met. I have been putting aside and putting 
aside to start a business of my own—rent a shop and 
fit it up. I should have done it by now only I am going 
to be married. I put it off for a time. I have plenty— 
plenty till it’s all over.” 

“ Despite all that,” said Arnold, and there was a 
break in his voice, “ we cannot take your money.” 

“ You can. You will have to for her sake. And, 
anyway, I will not leave your mother, whatever you 
say or do. I never had one to remember. And—it 
won’t be long now.” 

Arnold looked stupefied at the girl. 

“ Mary ! ” It was Arnold’s mother calling. 

“ You see,” said Mary. She went from the room. 

Arnold stooped and picked up the beads one by one. 
He looked at them in his palm. Then he let them 
trickle to the floor, tattooing with the sound of quick 
rain. “ So much,” he said slowly, “ so much for my 
philosophy of love.” 


Chapter VII 


Aix days became the same to Arnold ; Sundays were 
week-days ; he guessed at the months. He did not 
know what to do nor where to go for work ; his own 
trade hibernating, he applied with less and less hope for 
work of other kinds. As once he had struggled for 
employment in more respected callings, now he desper¬ 
ately sought work in the most menial occupations ; 
and nothing came of it. Christmas came and went, a 
date among the days. It made an opening on the 
string of clumsy wooden days like a cracked imitation 
pearl, hollow to the view. A fog of hopelessness 
gathered round Arnold, leaving him mentally groping, 
touching nothing real; making him blind to every¬ 
thing save shame, the diffident shame of the man who 
wants work and cannot obtain it. 

Sometimes he stood still in one or other of the rooms 
in his home and tried to wake up from the reality as if 
it were a dream. It was not only unemployment 
which created this grotesque state of existence ; there 
was the impossible situation of his mother’s living and 
living on weeks after the doctor had said she was 
practically dead. The doctor had said that she would 
live a day, no more ; and she had lived for a week. 
Then he had said that she could not live many hours 
longer as gangrene had set in ; and she had lived— 
lived, breathing and suffering, although the extremities 
of her feet were taken by mortification. And it had 
appeared not only on the paralysed side which did not 
feel it. Mary fought with it—a tangible thing to be 
fought. A mad, heroic battle it was. 

And his mother lived on. The doctor said that he 
had never known of such a will as Arnold’s mother’s, 
Kh 145 


146 


HAMMER MARKS 


“Then,” said Arnold, “is it possible that if one's 
will is powerful enough that one can stave off death 
for so long ? Six weeks now.” 

The doctor stretched his hand towards the bed. 
“ There is the proof,” he said. 

“ But, doctor, how can her will operate ? She is 
unconscious of her surroundings ; she does not eat; 
her accident has hastened senile decay ; she has not 
strength to move ; how can it be her will ? She knows 
nothing except the pain boring through her uncon¬ 
sciousness. How can it be her will without knowledge ? ” 

“It is her wonderful will-power,” said the doctor, 
with finality. 

Sometimes, with slight horror of himself, Arnold 
wondered why the low, perpetual moaning of his mother 
did not cause him anguish ; why it was no more to 
him than the ticking of a clock to which he had grown 
so accustomed that he had to pause and listen to hear 
if it had not stopped ; if he were callous ; if it meant 
that, despite of what he believed, he did not love his 
mother. He wondered if it was because, knowing he 
could do nothing to alleviate the pain, he was unmoved 
by it in wisdom. None of these questions did he 
answer ; the dull fog which had settled round him left 
him without insight to answer questions. 

And then, amazingly, was given him a chance to 
answer one of his questions. It was a chance to 
alleviate the pain. The doctor offered to supply a 
narcotic by which his mother should sleep, but Arnold 
had to sanction its use before it was given. The 
district nurse advised that it should be given. Mary, 
white-faced, said that if it was for her to decide she 
could not sanction it. Mrs. Raddle demanded with 
righteous fury that Arnold should give his “ Yea.” 
She grew ravenously vehement, with vulgar declama¬ 
tion, before a stone-faced Arnold whom she had not 
known before ; an Arnold, neither disdainful nor 
captious, who told her that it was not her affair ; who 
said it only once, and then let her rave. For Arnold 
had said “ No.” 


CHAPEL GKOVE 


147 


He had said “ No ” without hesitating for considera¬ 
tion, but the conflict of thoughts came later. “ Do I 
refuse because I fear that she might not wake ? Would 
not that be for the best ? This comes within range of 
my special cowardice, but it is not fear, I still can say 
c Yes ’—once ; but I have to say * No ’ hundreds of 
times ; every moment as she moans. Is it because I 
love her too much to run the risk ? It cannot be, or 
I should have hesitated before I answered. It is 
because I would not limit by a breath that glorious 
heroine-will. Please God she has given it to me. If 
ever there comes a day when, having it, I use it to 
hold back death until something more important than 
life is accomplished, and it is given to anyone who loves 
or hates me to obliterate my will by a single word, may 
he not say it as I will not now ; and if I weaken, hearing 
her suffering, may he give the sign. 0 God, let me be 
my mother’s son.” 

It was evening, and he stood in the front room. A 
ray from the lamp at the end of the avenue streaked the 
wall with uncertain light; the remainder of the room 
was dark. He paused in his thoughts and began them 
again. 

“ It is possible,” and he uttered the words softly, 
“ it is possible that since she wills to live, it is for some¬ 
thing. If she would only-” He stopped, as if a 

bell had rung clamorously; his mother had ceased 
to moan. 

He listened. It must be so ; he could hear nothing ; 
nothing after all these days and nights. Mary was not 
in the house. She was shopping. He went swiftly 
to the door which led to the kitchen. 

The light was full on and a fire was blazing. A 
kettle was steaming and singing. He walked cautiously 
into the kitchen ; hoping, fearing, he knew not what. 

“ You have been a long time coming, Jeffry.” 

His mother was speaking tenderly, without plaint of 
reproach, gentle welcome in her voice. She was looking 
at Arnold. He went swiftly to her and put his arms 
around her, not knowing what were best to say. 



148 


HAMMER MARKS 


He said no word. He did not let her see his face, 
lest, finding her son, she should lose her husband. He 
felt her kiss his cheek with happy wistfulness. Her 
quiet breathing told him that she was in a different, 
sweeter sleep than any which had blessed her for so 
many weeks. 

He rose and cut from a newspaper a shade to hang 
around the gas globe that the light should not fall 
disturbingly upon her eyes. He reeled a spindle- 
backed chair round on to its leg towards him, while he 
looked to see if his movements had disturbed the light¬ 
ness of her sleep. She slept on with childlike peace. 
He sat down upon the chair sideways, his one arm 
hanging over the back, and watched her. He was glad 
to still be looking at her ; glad that he had not sanc¬ 
tioned artificial sleep. 

He looked at her for a long time without moving his 
position, that he might keep within the locket of the 
years to be the picture of her face. Each contour of 
her face was a line of dignity. Her hair was resplendent 
silver waved and spread as that of a careful headdress 
of a Pompadour court lady ; but her lashes were dark 
and silky and heavy. Her mouth was a little child’s, 
curved in love of modest pleasures. She opened her 
eyes ; it was miraculous to him that her suffering had 
not touched their loveliness of grey. He did not 
move; he knew—he believed—she could not see 
him. 

“ Is that my Arnold ? ” she asked. 

“ Yes,” he whispered. Then, believing she would 
not hear, he was about to speak more distinctly, but 
she smiled contentedly. 

“ What time is it ? ” she asked. 

He was bewildered by her unexpected naturalness. 
He raised his glance to the mantelshelf. The clock, 
which stood in a wooden case with a glass front painted 
in representation of a church window, had stopped. 
He hazarded the correct time. “ Eight o’clock,” he 
said. 

“ Where is Mary ? ” she asked. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


149 


“ She has gone out to get things for to-morrow’s 
dinner,” he said, and added, lest it mattered, “ she will 
not be long.” 

Arnold was afraid to speak more, afraid to move, lest 
this wonderful spell of seemingly painless tranquillity 
should lose its serenity ; lest her consciousness of his 
presence, her surroundings, of all that pertained to her, 
should lapse. He had longed passionately, deeming it 
impossible, for such a moment as this, that he might 
ask her to forgive him his sins of unworthy sonship. 
His opportunity was here now; his opportunity was 
eternally beyond him. To disturb her tranquil hour, 
perhaps by doing so to quicken her consciousness to the 
existence of the chaos of pain now mysteriously stilled, 
would be to add to his score his greatest sin against her ; 
greatest because this would be done in realisation of its 
cruelty. 

He suffered the mute moments to advance and recede, 
a torturing cotillion of dreads and fears, making a 
dance of his indecision. The memory of a hundred 
little things wherein he had failed her trust and faith 
rose at him—it was his chance for peace in remembering 
her when she had gone. She was so restful-seeming; 
she should have died a month ago ; how could he, with 
a jarring thrust of actual thought, fling her to that pain 
mysteriously stilled for the moment? Better to bear 
his punishment; he had deserved it with a thousand 
slights. Coward that he was to flinch from reparation. 

“ Mother! ” he said poignantly. He could be 
allowed to say that with impunity ; it meant nothing 
but a name—meant everything but a name. 

“ Yes ? ” she said. 

He remained arrested in a movement to change his 
position, his elbows away from a resting-place, his hands 
turned forward gestureless. He realised that, having 
said so much, he had said so little that he must continue. 
The cavalcade of memories of his sins and the cavalcade 
of memories of pain she had born and which he must 
not cause her to resuffer, swiftly rode down upon his 
mind as if each side of his brain were thinking separately. 


150 


HAMMER MARKS 


opposedly. Coward that he was not to bear his punish 
ment l Coward that he was not to give her the justice— 
rather than mercy—of his abasement. 

“ Yes, Arnold ? ” she repeated. 

He sank his arms to an easier position and let his 
hands clasp over his knees. He could escape continuing 
his speech; he could say, “ I just wanted to say 
* Mother,’ mother, that was all,” and she would be 
happy in knowing him affectionate. But he leaned 
towards her, kissed her as her son. 

“ I am afraid 1 have not always been a good son, 
mother,” he said. “ I’ve grumbled a lot when you’ve 
been doing your best for me all the time. I remember 
one morning when I got up too early, before you called 
me. I could not find you, and went out to look for 
you. It was before the shops were open, and you had 
been going round to those early morning coffee-houses 
in Brabazon Street to buy milk for my cup of tea to 
bring up to me. They don’t sell milk over the counter, 
but you got it from one farther on and was coming 
back. There was nobody about so early. It was a 
quarter to five by the New Inn’s clock. The sky was 
only just getting grey, and the streets were grey; 
thin wetness was in the air. You had not anything 
on your head—and I grumbled at you. I said the 
coffee-house people would think I made a drudge of 
you. I think I swore ; you only said as you’d done 
it ’cause I couldn’t go out on a morning like that without 
something to warm me. It was not for your own tea— 
I never left any. I-” 

“You needn’t worry over anything like that, Arnie,” 
said his mother. “ If you’ve grumbled at me at times, 
I expect I’ve deserved it. You must not worry over 
things like that.” 

The glory of mother-love which forgives even while 
it is being sinned against shone for Arnold to see for a 
moment the fringe of its radiance even before he felt 
the lift of her forgiveness ; before he realised that he 
had not abused the tranquil hour. 

“ Is that Mary ? ” asked his mother* 



CHAPEL GROVE 


151 


Arnold had not noticed that Mary had entered. 

“ Yes,” said Mary, putting down her packages, and 
plucking off her gloves as she came round the table. 
“ Would you like something to drink, mother ? ” 

“ Please, Mary.” She sipped from the glass which 
Mary held, and turned to her quiet sleep again. There 
was nothing to be done. Mary and Arnold sat beside 
the bed, loving to be near her in that peaceful hour 
which followed. 

The dull, heavy cloak of inertia swaddled Arnold’s 
senses again after its blanket folds had been temporarily 
thrown back. He had few thoughts as he sat and 
waited ; unless such waiting is one long thought. He 
thought it strange, without caring why, that he did not 
feel some quickening of emotion during this pause in 
the ante-chamber with one who waited an audience 
with Death. 

Into his negative state of mind passed the thought 
that Mary might break down in the last moments of her 
long sacrifice. He turned his glance to her and found 
that she was looking at him. Possibly that had thrown 
the thought into his heavy mind. 

“ I was only thinking,” he said to her, “ that you 
must be beginning to feel the strain is too much for 
you.” 

“ I shall go on till everything is all over and then I 
shall give way. So long as I have plenty to do I can 
go on. After to-night there will be a great deal to do 
till after the funeral. Then I shall feel. The clock 
has stopped ; set it going. The doctor will want to 
know the time for the certificate. I had been for¬ 
getting ; we shall want hot water in the kettles ” 
She rose, and Arnold went and looked at her wrist- 
watch, which was fastened round a candlestick in 
another room. He wound the clock and set the pen¬ 
dulum in motion. The ticking was uneven ; he packed 
one of the bottom corners of the clock with a crushed 
matchbox, making the sounds evenly paced. Every¬ 
thing he did he did with the mechanical stroke of 
thought and detachment of a man chopping wood. 


152 


HAMMER MARKS 


He tried to press upon himself the emotional stress 
of this time of waiting, telling himself that it was not 
reverent to be dispassionate. He tried to stir up 
feeling by thinking of his mother’s wonderful will, 
which in this hour was being bent—impossible as it was 
for fate to break it—and when bent would soon be 
tossed away—a lost, but not a spent, force. 

He looked at her face, marvelling that any form so 
tender could be the cover to anything so strong. “ Please 
God,” he murmured in prayerlessness, “ her will, so 
magnificent, shall not be lost in the void we do not 
understand, but shall be given to me ; an inheritance, 
an heirloom.” 

His mother made a slight murmur, and Mary moistened 
the feeble lips. Arnold bent forward, but the words 
were lost, although their sound was contentment. 

“ Do not disturb her,” said Mary. “It is cruel.” 

A little while, and there was a heavier purring in 
his mother’s breathing ; and she, Ann Brooke, heroine, 
died. 

Mary and Arnold had risen. There was silence in the 
home ; real silence, despite the sounds of a house. 
That is real silence when we cannot hear the sound we 
listen for. It lasted but a moment; but it was one 
of those moments which withhold their exit, as when a 
man in the dark, seeking to close a door noiselessly, 
closes the last inch of gap so carefully that it seems that 
the post retreats before the latch and that the latch and 
post will never meet. That moment was longer than 
had been the hour of waiting. Man made seconds to 
fit the markings on a dial: God made them to fit the 
measure of His purpose. 

“ Isn’t she very lovely ? ” said Mary. 

Arnold nodded. “When Death comes so quietly as 
this,” said Arnold, “ there is nothing to fear in it. I 
hope I die like this.” 

“Will you go for the woman while I fetch the things 
from upstairs ? ” said Mary. “ I have everything 
ready. And jot the time down on something—the 
clock has stopped.” 


CHAPEL GROVE 


153 


“ I know. I heard it stop as I stood up. I did not 
know I did, but I did. I will look at the watch to be 
sure.” He took a stub of pencil from his pocket and 
went into the other room. And still the coma of his 
senses allowed him no emotion of the happening ; no 
joy that his mother would not suffer further ; no grief 
for all there was for grief. 

“ It cannot be that I do not—did not love my 
mother,” he said to himself. “ I know I did. It is 
because there are things for me to do, and in a way they 
are things for her. There will be times in the next few 
days when I shall have nothing to do. I would like 
to feel that then I shall give her my tears. She can 
see into my heart now, and she knows that my silence of 
senses is not the strong man masking his feelings ; 
that this lethargy is not on me because I am frozen 
with grief ; she knows that I am just dead to any 
sorrow: that—I—am—indifferent. It is horrible to be 
indifferent at such a time, I know, but I cannot feel 
horror.” He released the blind cord and lowered the 
Venetian laths, heeding that they should not rush 
down. 

Empty hours there were in the next few days; yet 
they were quite empty for him ; sorrowless. When for 
the last time he looked at her face, he knew nothing save 
that she was beautiful, with winter beauty. He knelt 
to kiss her ; knowing that he must not kiss her cheek, 
lest the pressure of his Ups should leave a mark, he 
laid his lips among the looping of her hair, and even 
then was as dead to grief as she. 

Mary was busy in those few days. She set the house 
in speckless order. She ran together a simple black 
frock. The frock made her look slim and tiny ; so 
Arnold thought on the morning of the funeral when she 
first wore it. 

A rain-sweet night had led in a morning fresh and 
faintly bright. The minister from the church which 
Mary attended was to hold a short service in the room of 
Arnold’s house where his mother lay, instead of, as 
usual, in the cemetery chapel. 


154 


HAMMER MARKS 


The room lost all its homeliness for the sad occasion. 
The men who were to be bearers and the few sym¬ 
pathisers who were in attendance seemed to make the 
room encompassingly small. The undertaker was like 
an alert commercial traveller. The minister was 
young, which cheered Arnold a little, for he had dread 
of rites and the matured rumbling of vowel sounds in 
the throats of elderly ministers which turned even a 
weather remark to a psalm from the pulpit. 

Arnold still felt the thrall of his callousness. He 
was nervously wishful for the service to commence and 
end, and that was all. In the circle round the bier he 
chose to stand where he deemed he would be a steadying 
influence should one of the younger women be inclined 
to be hysterical. He stood between Mary and the girl 
who was to be in charge of the house and prepare 
a meal while the coaches were absent. Arnold did not 
approve of women being present on such occasions ; 
he considered that they had no control over their 
emotions, and of all occasions when a “ scene ” should 
not destroy dignity in an assembly, such an occasion 
as this was to be most carefully guarded from it. 

He felt the concentrated essence of woe spreading 
from one to another. It was this spreading and collect¬ 
ing of other minds’ material which would wave upon the 
emotions and cause demonstrativeness rather than 
actual, personal feelings. He thought that if he were 
not woven about in this unemotionalism, that he 
himself might be moved by the combined press of other’s 
feelings. 

The minister began to pray. Arnold closed his eyes 
and relaxed his muscles. He let his hands hang each 
within the other, in the open bend of his fingers. He 
allowed himself to drift helmlessly in the wake of 
another’s prayer. 

The prayer began as one of thankfulness for the life 
his mother had lived. It turned to beseech for comfort 
for him who had rested in her bosom, who had played 
round her knee, for whom she had made a mother’s 
sacrifices-'- 



CHAPEL GROVE 


155 


Arnold felt suddenly as if he wanted to weep his 
heart away, and in that moment he realised that he 
was at the mercy of his emotions. He knew what he 
had done ; that when he relaxed his limbs and brain 
and gave himself up to the prayer, he had not been 
picked up by the prayer, the prayer had nothing to do 
with this great terror of tears which had come upon 
him ; he had been picked up by that grief which had 
been waiting, waiting, waiting for him to cease question¬ 
ing where it was so that he should not grasp and bridle 
it as it rose upon him. It had found its moment. He 
had put off from himself all speculation, and bowed in 
weakness among the curtains of another s prayer, and 
now on every side sorrow pressed upon him and his 
heart seemed burst with griefs. 

He heard a deeper fervour added to the prayer, as 
if his distress had given greater encouragement to the 
plea, but the words were lost to him in the cymbal- 
clash of his emotions. 

He tried to clutch at his panic. It must be now, 
now, or he would be submerged. It was not to be 
stemmed ; it was a force—that which no man could 
control. He forced downward at it and it rose, rose 
steadily, refusing to be baffled. 

It spread about his heart; it swayed his body, and 
his struggling wrote out the drama of the struggle on 
his memory, ever and ever to be enacted when he 
bowed his head in after days. He held his hands to 
his side, gripping the pouch of flesh in his palms. He 
straightened his body, as if to withstand a wrestler s 
hold, but bent his head so low that no one could see. 
As yet no one knew. He must crush it quickly before 
they knew—quickly—and bind it until he returned 
to the house and had locked himself within a room. 

A great sob broke from him. He had lost; he had 
forgotten his manhood. He felt the agony of painless 
tears. 0 God ! if he could only be alone ! He was 

alone! . . , 

It was stronger than he ; it flooded his mind ; and 
through the welter of grief came the knowledge that it 


156 


HAMMER MARKS 


was not all grief ; accusation and remorse cried in his 
heart. 

“ Hypocrite. Hypocrite. They think you are but 
a little child lost from his mother. You are, you are ; 
but you arermore ; you are a weak, vainglorious coward 
who is left without anyone to shelter you. Hypocrite, 
it is not only for your loss you weep. Your grief is 
matched by knowledge of all the slights and words 
that you have cast at her. Think of them ! Think of 
them ! Think of them ! Forgiven ? What is that! 
Your mother always forgave you as you spoke the 
things. She told you at the end that she forgave you. 
What of that ? You said the things, you said them. 
Remorse ? What of that! Break your little paltry 
heart; it cannot take away the fact that you bruised 
her love over and over and over again. The past is 
dead, but it lived once ! Remorse and forgiveness can 
draw out the pointed weapon ; time can heal the wound ; 
but nothing prevented the pain at the moment when 
you struck- And she is dead.” 


Chapter VIII 


John Rockby was annoyed. 

He stood in his new studio, which was at the top of 
a modern brick and terra-cotta building in Council 
Square, one of the hearts of Birmingstow. In the 
centre of the city there were several of these frog¬ 
shaped tablelands, with wide or narrow thoroughfares 
elbowing from them, but they were all within a harlot’s 
promenade each of the others. 

Council House Square was the main one. Possibly 
it was the cornice and pediment which made the 
Council House so like a cheap sideboard. More 
statues had been put into this square than any of the 
others. One or two of the baggy trousered figures 
stood by themselves, but in most cases they were 
collected on islands, giving the effect of cruets with 
some of the sauce bottles taken out for use and left in 
odd places among the lamps on the tableland. The 
statues in themselves were diverting in the extreme. 
Possibly the trio on the middle oval were the quaintest. 
The Queen with her orb seemed modelled from a cook 
about to put a plum pudding in the boiler ; the states¬ 
man in underwear—tight clothing and a slipping dressing- 
gown, who advanced a toe over the edge of his pedestal, 
looked as if he were testing if the water in the swimming 
bath was cold ; the orator, who was shown as emphasis¬ 
ing a declamation by resting the fingers of one hand in 
the palm of the other, appeared to be tossing for half¬ 
pennies. There had been four figures on this island, 
but the bishop, whose two fingers were raised in blessing, 
had been stated in the local Press to be calling for two 
bitters, and the statue had been placed in a more 
secluded place rather than waste the stone. That so 
i57 


158 


HAMMER MARKS 


great a city as Birmingstow had done this showed that 
she was not entirely ignorant of, but sensitive about, 
her squint. And yet she let Fountain Memorial, a 
big and comic collection of sculptors, remain not more 
than the rays of an arc-lamp away. 

John Rockby, who was one of the city’s favoured 
artists, chose this as the vantage-ground for his profes¬ 
sion when he ceased to be a master at the School of Art. 
Seeing that a number of his sitters were business men, 
or active on the city council, he probably had chosen 
a good spot and was a sound business man. 

But this morning he did not think he was a good 
business man ; he thought he had been a fool. He had 
had three orders cancelled. His clients had not post¬ 
poned their sittings ; they had cancelled their orders. 
One was going abroad ; another thought he had made 
a mistake, that he was too old to turn to such vanity as 
sitting for a picture ; the third, Mr. Frost, had given no 
reason. This had been a week before, and, although 
John Rockby was busy, the loss rankled. He could 
find no reason for the sudden caprice of the three. He 
doubted if it was caprice. At odd moments he looked 
down into the Square and bit his nails, and pondered 
fretfully. 

Mr. Frost’s pianoforte warehouses were on the 
opposite side of the Square, where Parraline Street 
mouthed into it. John Rockby looked often at the 
door of the showrooms. Sard Eglantine Sard used a 
room on the premises for his music instruction. The 
thought persisted in the artist’s mind that possibly 
Mr. Sard had influenced Mr. Frost’s decision to with¬ 
draw his order. Mr. Sard had expressed facile scorn 
of Arnold Brooke to Rockby, intimating that the artist 
had not been acting strictly within conventions of class 
etiquette when he introduced a person of the labouring 
community to a gentleman and an artist. 

John Rockby was John Rockby. He said that he 
had not thought till then that Mr. Sard was deceived 
by Brooke’s pretensions ; that he thought he had made 
the jest pointed when at the introduction he had said 


CHAPEL GROVE 


159 


the youth got his living at painting ; that Brooke was 
so palpably what he was that it did not occur to him 
for a moment that anyone could be mistaken. He 
pleaded that if he was to blame at all it was because 
he was so sure in his mind that the undesirable acquaint¬ 
ance was an “ impossible person ” that he thought 
the fact was patent to everyone. 

As John Rockby looked at Mr. Frost’s doorway he 
saw Bennetta Sard leave the step. She walked among 
the people who spilled in and out of the Square. It 
occurred to him that she might be coming to visit him. 
But why ? 

He chose to turn from the portrait of Alderman 
Spalding on which he was painting the high lights of a 
boot and to fill its place on the easel with a panel of 
Miss Helen Vawn. The change was swift. An easy 
chair was placed where anyone who sat upon it would 
observe the picture of the young lady; a padded 
corset bust was lifted to a box ; about the padded 
satin throat and breast were the neck jewels of Miss 
Vawn. It was these which the artist turned to depicting 
with the palette and brushes wet from the alderman’s 
boots. 

He was humming a sea-rover’s song when the knock 
fell on the studio door. “ Come in,’.’ he called in his 
manly voice, and took up the song again. The door 
was hidden by the canvas. 


So follow me where glory lies, 

Good men, true and fine. 

For he who quails when danger hails 
Can ne’er be mate of mine. 


“ Is it you with the mouldings, Jaykins ? ” 

The door clicked to its hold. “ No, Mr. Rockby.” 
He stepped round the easel. “ Miss Sard ! ” he said. 
“ This is a pleasure. Won’t you sit down ? ” He 
directed her to the easy chair. “ You are one of us, 
aren’t you ? I mean you are an artist yourself ? ” 


160 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ I played at it once,” she said, as she turned to the 

ehair. T 

“ Then you will not mind if, while we talk, 1 con¬ 
tinue. Commissions, it’s good to have them ; the more 
the merrier ; pupils, it’s good to have them ; the more 
the merrier \ but they keep me in constant see-saw, 
wondering which I shall have to refuse, fresh commis¬ 
sions or new pupils, and in the end I go on taking more 
of both and cutting out my simple pleasures. You can’t 
do too much for art. Then I’m a cautious man. I 
always think if I tell myself I’m too busy to take on 
Miss So-and-so’s portrait just now, I might be restraining 
my hand from the very picture which would first get 
me hung in the Academy ; if, on the other hand, I tell 
myself that I ought not to have another pupil, I might 
be turning away the very one that art wants—one of the 
real ones.” 

He flung a glance to see if she was a prospective 
client or a pupil. Her head was bent. She was tending 
a green-backed bunch of shiny violets which had been 
held by the buckle of her furs and which had dropped to 
her lap as she unclasped the fastening and unsheathed 
her shoulders from the soft envelopment. 

“ You see,” he proclaimed, holding his palette as a 
tray and his brush as a wand, “ the only thing is to take 
both and be grateful. Do you like this of Miss Vawn ? 
I hope on for a particular type, neither brunette nor 
blonde, and apple blossom for a background.” 

“I am afraid I am rather selfish, Mr. Rockby. I 
did not come about pictures ; I came about my own 
affairs.” 

John Rockby laid his palette on the corner of a 
table. “ Won’t you pull your chair nearer the fire ? ” 
he said. 

He eased forward with his knee a chair for himseli, 
but he did not sit down. He threw off his overall and 
hung it on the shelf of the easel, and took a stand which 
emphasised his bigness. He did not know that Bennetta 
Sard was not one of the women who are impressed by 
bulk—bulk alone. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


161 


“Not to waste your time too much,” she said, “ I 
will come straight to the matter. I want to know about 
Mr. Brooke.” 

“ I don’t know a great deal about him,” said 
Rockby. 

“ But you can tell me this much—and it is all I 
want to know—is he an artist in addition to being a 
workman? Does he do anything—however slight—as 
an artist, or is he just an extravagant working man who 
uses a smattering of jargon from the schools of art to 
obtain entrance into circles where artists really do 
things ? I want to know. I want to know because I 
can condone his wish to be among better society than 
his work provides him with; I could even take it as a 
compliment to myself that he jumped upon a different 
plane from his own merely because I happen to be on 
it. But I cannot forgive him deceiving me into thinking 
that he was an artist, that art was the only thing which 
counted with him. Is he in any way an artist ? Friends 
are laughing at my father because of his 4 spare-time 
gentleman.’ Is Arnold Brooke also a spare-time 
artist ? ” 

John Rockby shrugged. He thought, “ How very 
like a woman. She does not mind the man making a 
fool of others, but she objects to him making a fool of 
her.” Aloud, he said, 44 If he is an artist, I don’t 
know anything about it. I should say that he never 
has, never could paint a picture. He was only one of 
the 4 also rans ’ at the school. It is unlikely that he 
should afterwards do anything that was worth the 
paint and canvas he used on it. Why should he ? 
He does not get the chance. I’m sorry for him, of 
course, in a way, but when anyone sets up to be any¬ 
thing in our line you can always call for the obvious 
proof or tell him to get out.” 

His eyes swept to and fro in a semicircular glance, 
meeting her glance at the middle of the arc. He saw 
that she was extremely disturbed, and pale with a 
fluttering pallor. He cursed Arnold for involving him 
in any way with the annoyances of these influential 
Lh 


162 


HAMMER MARKS 


people. He surmised that Arnold had been making 
love to Miss Sard, using as a base her proneness to 
encourage a struggling artist to reach to ideals. 

“Won’t you think again, Mr. Rockby? Perhaps 
I’m foolish, and want to be deceived in spite of myself. 
I’ m hoping even now, that if he never has done any¬ 
thing in that way, that he intended to, and that, given 
a chance, he could accomplish something worthy. 
She leaned forward in the chair and her furs slipped 
smoothly down, “ Tell me all that you know of him, 
Mr. Rockby. I want to judge for myself if I’m still 
making a mistake or how big a mistake I’ve made. I 
don’t know anyone else to go to. You seem to be the 
only person who knows him outside the people he has 
met through my father.” 

“ I can’t help you much. I only know he is a house- 
painter and seems to be out of work a great deal at 
times. I shouldn’t have known that only he told me 
so a few minutes before I introduced him to your 
father. I hadn’t seen him for two or three years, 
so asked him what he was doing.” 

“ I knew he was that,” said Bennetta, shaking her 
wrist to dismiss the question. “ You see, years ago 
he came with some men who were at work on the rooms 
at home. He brought some things on a handcart, 
and I saw him leaving the house with it. I didn’t 
say anything to him. I’ve seen him working on build¬ 
ings about town when he hasn’t seen me. I read the name 
of the people he was with on the steps and ladders 
because he changed from those that worked at home, 
and I used to look out for the name on the ladders. I 
liked to see him working. I don’t mind that. He 
has never mentioned that work to me, but he has said 
he was an artist. I want to know, I want to know if 
he was an artist. He told me about your studio once 
or twice, and I thought he might have shown you some 
of his work—that you could tell me if he is a charlatan.” 
She tried to hold his glance. 

“ When he talked about being in my studio, he meant 
when he was a little urchin with a damp nose who used 


CHAPEL GROVE 


163 


to fetch and carry for me. But he became impertinent 
about coming to the School of Art, and I wouldn’t 
allow it. You yourself would know how he got on 
there ; you were in the same classes. I suspect he 
followed you ; that he only went at all because you did. 
Mind you, I don’t know anything about it. I never 
saw any of his work. It’s very fine of you to show any 
interest in him. But, all said and done, why should 
you ? He isn’t worth it. Anyway, you are touching 
pitch. And what does it matter ? He’s had his 
little fling ; caused a great deal of annoyance to people 
who had been kind to him ; and is now probably enjoy¬ 
ing the joke with the men he works with. I suppose you 
know the kind they are ? You can take if from me that 
he was only laughing up his sleeve at your father all 
the time.” 

“ I can’t think that, Mr. Rockby.” She rose, and 
roused a brightness in the dullness which was shadowing 
her eyes. “ I mustn’t hinder you longer. If it had not 
been a matter of importance to me I would not have 
come. My father will not let me mention Mr. Brooke 
to him. But I wanted to know if I could do any 
good. You are a man of ideals, Mr. Rockby, or you 
would not be in the position you are, so you will under¬ 
stand my wish to do the most good that I may in the 
world, especially for art. I could have helped Mr. 
Brooke if he had the germ ; I can help Mr. de Valing ; 
but I could not help both. They detest each other. 
Mr. de Valing asked me last night to marry him. He 
says thai his art needs me. I tell you this as an under¬ 
standing artist. He says that I keep his lyre tuned. 
I asked for a day to think it over.” 

“ I understand,” said John Rockby. “ But I think 
that you would have wasted your generosity on young 
Brooke.” 

“ Thank you,” said Bennetta tiredly. “ Everything 
is very difficult for people when they try to do what is 
best.” She extended her hand. 

“You will accept Mr. de Valing ? ” asked Rockby. 

She looked up as if annoyed, and then, as if admitting 


164 HAMMER MARKS 

that the question was natural, she said, “ Yes. Good¬ 
bye.” 

“ Happiness all round,” he said, and opened the 
door. “ Good morning.” 

He returned to the window. His foot slipped. He 
kicked away the bunch of violets upon which he had 
trodden. He saw Bennetta crossing the square of 
stupid statues. “ Clay,” he said, with a rare lapse 
from mundane thoughts. 

He put on his overall, and dropped spots of oil about 
the palette where the body colour was no longer moist. 
He painted in the jewels meticulously, his nervousness of 
touch due to an endeavour to concentrate while he was 
irritated. “ Damn it all,” he said. “ I’m not preparing 
a jewellers’ catalogue.” And he flaked white on the 
round of a pearl. Nevertheless, he immediately took 
a pencil in grey and too carefully defined the high 
light. He pranked in the claw of the setting. “ I’ll 
cut out this showing off to posterity with the rest of 
the madams I do, or charge them extra for jewellery. 
That will stop them hiring a mile or two of ornaments. 
Brooke, the young swine, why couldn’t he get about 
without getting me into this mess ? Lord knows where 
Sard will stop if he’s got his knife into me. And there’s 
another cupful of emeralds has to be hung in her ears 
yet. I’ll tell her they drag the ear out of shape. Why 

can’t- Oh, come in ! ” He leaned his head round 

the canvas as a knock fell on the door. 

Arnold Brooke came in. John Rockby lowered his 
jaw and ran the underneath of his tongue to and fro 
along the front of his lip. He rubbed the moisture 
away with his knuckle. 

“ Shall I come in ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ In, aren’t you ? ” asked Rockby. 

“ Yes, but I thought you might be busy.” 

“ I am.” Suddenly John Rockby remembered he 
had a news item of interest for his visitor. “ Come in 
and don’t let that draught blow any longer.” 

Arnold came into the studio and stood awkwardly. 
He stared hard at the artist, to see if he were jocular or 



CHAPEL GROVE 


165 


whether he was one with the world which scorned him. 
Rockby swept his glance round in search of a paint rag, 
and his glance passed into and across Arnold’s in passing. 
It could scarcely be said that they looked at one 
another. 

“ Anything particular ? ” asked Rockby, removing a 
dropping of paint from his toecap. 

“ No. I’m leaving Birmingstow. I’m going to 
London, and I had a feeling that I’d like to call and see 
you before I went. I sort of felt I’d like somebody to 
wish me ‘ Good luck.’ I’m going to-morrow.” 

“ You’ve been a bit of a high-flyer lately, haven’t 
you ? Reaction from Rudyard Street ? ” 

“ I don’t think I’ve been more ambitious than 
encouragement warranted.” 

“ What are you going to London for ? Got work 
there ? ” 

“No. But, then, I haven’t any here either. It 
can’t be worse there, and another thing ; I thought I 
might do something with my art there. Mr. Sard, for 
instance, wouldn’t feel that I’d exploited his kindness if 
I achieved something there. I couldn’t do it here. 
You know that people here always have to look inside 
the ring for the hallmark before they know it’s gold. 
They like their artists ready made.” 

“ Eh ! ” said John Rockby. 

“ Well, you know what Birmingstow is for an artist 
before he has made his name,” said Arnold. He was 
supremely uncomfortable, although he was seated in an 
easy chair in the company of one of the few men he was 
fond of. 

“ What’s the matter with Birmingstow ? ” asked the 
artist, straddling his legs with his back to the fire, his 
hands behind his back, his overall bunched through 
his bent arms and skirting before him. He asked it 
antagonistically, but his glance around the studio was 
complacent, “ Besides, there are artists and artists. 
What odds here or London. You haven’t started to 
take art seriously, have you ? ” 

“ I never left off.” 


166 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ What do you do ? ” asked Rockby sceptically. 

“ Landscape mainly ; townscapes, if you like to put 
it like that,” said Arnold, fretting, and sore with 
weariness at charity withheld. 

“ Really ? You aren’t coming it with me as well, are 
you ? Just keeping up the pose ? ” 

Arnold looked bewildered. “Are you joking with 
me just to buck me up a bit ? ” 

He looked at Rockby, solid of build, towerlike of 
proportions ; the type of man whom a man who is not 
an athlete thinks fine, lusty, and sinewed for prowess. 
In the empty shell of Arnold’s loneliness was the muted 
murmur of kindnesses done him in childhood by the 
man smiling before him. The sound of the sea-shell 
is sad because it is the sound of the sea receding. 

Arnold had kept the fallacies of childhood longer than 
most men, owing to his isolation. Until lately they 
had still clustered round his belief in the innate nobility 
of human nature, as the feathers of a time-teller cluster 
prim around the dandelion stem—until lately : the 
time-teller had been bent into the wind, and most of the 
fairy minutes blown away; a few remained, but it 
needed only a breath, a breath of laughter, to leave it 
naked. Arnold could not believe that John Rockby 
was not a good man and true. 

John Rockby looked searchingly at Arnold. He saw 
that he was pale, and his cheeks a little recessed. He 
attributed it to dissipation. He considered him from 
foot to head—patent leather shoes with silk laces, 
black silk hose, a lounge suit of navy blue, a bat’s- 
wing bow, an overcoat of thick grey fleece, well 
tailored with a little display, forgivable in a very 
young man. He appeared to be a man of fashion 
according to the Birmingstow pattern. John Rockby 
knew that he was also minted in Rudyard Street, where 
the moulds were made of most evils. Rudyard Street 
possibly knew much good, but certainly it had all 
knowledge of craftiness. He knew also that Arnold 
had masqueraded in an intellectual circle of local 
society whose selectiveness was painful to those above 


CHAPEL GROVE 


167 


and below it. As he met Arnold’s glance he felt that 
shrewdness was apparent in it. John Rockby was John 
Rockbv ; he could not believe that Arnold was naive 
and unsophisticated. “ He will get somewhere some 
day with that nerve of his,” he thought, “if it is only 
into jail.” 

“ I didn’t know you did anything beyond the school, 
and that only to be near Sard’s girl,” John Rockby 
said, leading Arnold on to betray himself irrevocably. 

“ But I thought from the way you spoke that you 
seemed ready to back me up when you introduced me 
to Mr. Sard and those others ; that you knew I was all 
out for art, that I have stuck it for years and years. 
Weren’t you really trying to do me a good turn because 
I had not had much success and it comes so easily to 
you ? ” 

“ Think it comes to me easy, do you ? ” asked Rockby, 
with a broadening of his cheeks. “ And you have not 
had much ? Had any ? Exhibited anything ? ” 

Arnold had sunk back from the critical to his pupil 
attitude towards John Rockby. He turned to him, 
eager for a little approbation, craving the mercy of a 
little understanding, sick for a little humanity, an 
orphan of encouragement and sympathy—an artist 
fallen foul of Birmingstow. 

“ Yes,” he said. “ Nothing any good, though. I 
signed them A. Brook with the c e ’ dropped. They 
wouldn’t look at any of my serious canvases, and I 
wanted to test my work. I’ve been at it now, you must 
remember, for close on six years ; and if you never get 
any return from art, sooner or later you drop it; unless 
you are a fanatic. I wanted to see if I was absolutely 
hopeless—see if I could shoot a bottle off a string before 
I aimed at a buck. So I did some of those pictures 
that look as if they have had a tin of condensed milk 
poured over them. You know—the kind of thing that 
G. Brompton is trying to start a Midland School of 
Landscape painting with—the ice-cream school. I 
don’t think you’ve done any, but you know how they 
are done You squeeze a thick coat of Chinese white all 


168 


HAMMER MARKS 


over the canvas first, and while it is still wet you paint 
on top of it, choosing a suitable subject, of course— 
‘ Moonrise on the Loch ’ ; * Seashore in Mist ’ ; ‘ Soft 
Twilight.’ If you put a seagull or any object in, and 
you fancy it in another position, you just glide it over 
the surface—the whole patch moves on the wet ground. 
And if you want to leave off till the next day, you 
scrape off the white you have not touched and squeeze 
more white up to the ridge to-morrow. Not that 
you’d be likely to want to leave off; you can do as 
many as you need in an afternoon. I didn’t sign very 
legibly.” 

“ No ? ” murmured Rockby tamely. 

“No. If you’ve noticed, Brompton himself signs 
with a lozenge. I think he has a sense of humour ; 
must have, or he would not try to start a school.” 

“ Mm,” said Rockby. “ I know the man you mean ; 
but you don’t call that art ? There is no objection to any 
means being employed to get a good effect, but the 
effect is not good.” 

“ That’s so, but-” began Arnold. 

Rockby interrupted him. “ We won’t discuss it. 
I don’t care to.” 

Arnold felt snubbed. He asked himself if John 
Rockby also meditated disapproving of him and wished 
to cut him, but he checked the thought as unworthy 
of him. Even if John Rockby was not such a fine 
fellow, he could not charge Arnold with deceiving him 
as to his station, since he had always been aware of it. 

“ That’s the only time I’ve done that kind of stuff. 
I go all out for what I hold is best. That was one of 
the reasons why I came to see you before I went away. 
I wanted to know if you’d mind storing one or two of 
my pictures till I’m settled.” 

“ I’d like to,” said John Rockby, “ but you see how I 
am limited for room space. This place is pretty expen¬ 
sive, and I have to make the most of it. And now I’m 
married, and in my own house, it does not do to have 
canvases kicking all over the place.” 

“ I’m sorry,” said Arnold hastily. “ You must 



CHAPEL GROVE 


169 


forgive me. I’m afraid I haven’t any sense of perspec¬ 
tive. I’m like that. I don’t think of the trouble I 
put people to until it’s pointed out to me, and then I’m 
sorry enough. I must be a bit of a cad to think of 
asking you in the first place.” 

“ That’s all right,” said Rockby, graciousness in his 
voice for the first time since the interview opened. 

Arnold rose. “ Well, good-bye,” he said. “ You 
have always been decent to me. It’s good of you to 
see me now while you are busy, but you are the only 
one I am saying good-bye to. By the way, if you see 
Miss Sard, tell her by accident that I’ve left Birmingstow, 
will you ? ” 

“ Certainly I will. Did you know she was engaged ? ” 

“ E—r ? ” 

“ She’s engaged to be married.” 

“ Who to ? ” 

“ Mr. de Valing.” 

“ Who told you ? ” 

“ She did.” 

“ When ? ” 

“ This afternoon.” 

“ Oh, well—good-bye.” 

“ Good-bye, and the very best of luck.” There was a 
flinch in their handshake, and Arnold could not tell 
from whom it came, himself or John Rockby. 

Arnold preferred to walk down rather than avail 
himself of the lift. As he reached the first landing he 
heard a door above open. 

John Rockby called, “ I say, old boy.” 

Arnold turned and trod up the stairs a few steps. 
“ Yes ! ” he cried. 

Rockby leaned round the handrail as he said, “ If 
you’ve got any canvases that you are not taking away, 
or any that will paint over, I can always do with some, 
you know.” 

“ Before I go,” said Arnold, “ I’m going to destroy 
them all. Then I shall be quite alone.” 

The door above closed. 

“ I’m a bit of a boor,” thought Arnold. “ But still, 


170 


HAMMER MARKS 


I’m too sick of everything to be civil all the time. Shall 
I walk or go on the tram ? Walk. Oh, no, let me get 
home.” He overlaid a laugh with gruff ness. “Home!” 

When he reached the house in Chapel Grove he said 
again “ Home,” but he said it thickly and half under his 
breath. The front room was bare. He had cleaned it 
after the sale of the furniture, and it seemed clean and 
naked as a skull—dead beyond death. A sheet of light 
came through a slot of the Venetian blind and reached 
to the wall beyond like the shining ceiling of a tent. 

His steps struck on the boards as if the heels of his 
shoes were iron blocks. He stepped on his toe-points. 
He wondered if he was alone in the house, although he 
knew that he was. The gloom occasioned by the lowered 
laths made it a house in mourning. He stepped back 
to the window, and, plucking the cord, rattled up the 
blind. 

The light was fading for evening, but it was strong 
enough to make grey the room ; to show the shapes 
on the floor and walls where furniture had stood 
and pictures hung—shapes; the ghosts of household 
gods. 

Every sound he made was mimicked by an echo. 
He looked at the faded outlines on the walls, seeing, 
not them, but the familiar things which had made them. 
Memory quested emotion through his bosom. He 
answered the plaint of the barren spaces on the walls. 
“ I had to sell them. I couldn’t go on without money 
or paying Mary back. I don’t know how I shall go on 
even as it is.” He caught himself looking to the mirror 
which no longer stood on the chimneypiece. He started 
as the room changed suddenly with a spreading of 
golden screens ; the lamplighter had lit the lamp at 
the opening of the Grove. As if he pushed his way past 
ghosts he reached the door into the kitchen. 

His bags were packed and lay in the middle of the 
kitchen floor. They were sufficient to take away the 
sense of utter emptiness, and made a focus for his eyes. 
He went up the stairs. The knocking of his footsteps 
was given back from every room. On the little landing 


CHAPEL GROVE 


171 


he paused, his hand upon the knob of the room he called 
his workroom, thinking of what he was about to 
do. 

He was glad it was dark, for he would not see the 
pictures. A week before he had placed them so that as 
he opened the door they would be facing him, welcoming 
him whenever he came in. And if it was light and that 
welcome was there for him, as it always had been, he 
believed that his spirit would weaken and he would 
spare. 

He opened the door. The blackness of the staircase 
had deceived him ; it was not dark in the room. They 
were all there, eager with welcome ; telling him they 
had been looking for his coming, wanting him, and 
lonely without their lover, storing their beauty for 
him- 

“ Oh, God,” he said slowly, and stepped back upon 
the stairs and pulled the door shut. 

He sat upon the top stair, his elbow on his knees, his 
head bowed between his hands. He remained, slightly 
swaying, until it must have been dark within the room ; 
until long after it was dark in the room. 

Arnold rose, stiffly and wearily. He would have to 
perform the act in cold blood ; he had no spirit for it. 
He felt no bitterness, no self-pity, only the emptiness of 
despair and life’s utter futility. 

He stood close to the door, and sawed his hand up 
and down with the knob in the cleft of his fingers the 
while he asked himself for the many hundredth time if 
it was necessary for him to destroy his work. What 
else could he do with them ? He could not take them 
with him. No one wanted them : no one, that was, who 
would cherish them. He dared not take from his little 
money the payment for storage, or, if he did, and any¬ 
thing happened to him so that he never came back to 
retrieve them, what would be their probable fate ? 
He opened the door and pushed it back to the 
wall. 

The window sticks cut an oblong of night-sky into 
panels. The moon was blond. Where it shone the 



172 


HAMMER MARKS 


wall was bare ; there were no pictures on that side. 
Oh, he had no heart for the work. He felt that the 
knee of God was pressing too hard upon him. “ What 
shall I do ? ” he said, “ What shall I do ? ” as he stood 
in the middle of the room. 

He jerked himself to swift alertness. At the side of 
him something had moved ; it was but his silhouette 
shadow cut by the moon in the bright oblongs of moon¬ 
shine on the bare wall. “ What shall I do ? ” he asked 
his shadow. It was tall where it was cast, much bigger 
than he was, the hair spread untidily. 

Just for a moment his eyes bleared and caused him to 
see colour in his shadow, redness in the hair. Only 
for a moment did the shadow seem to have red hair, 
but his shadow had answered him in that moment. 

He did not fumble as he took the pictures down; he 
knew where each one was. He did not hurry; not 
spare himself a mite of anguish ; it was the least he 
could do for them—destroy them gently. Those 
which were in frames he took first. He worked the 
nails out with his fingers and put the frames carefully 
by the door, that they might be of use to whoever came 
after him. He took the wedges from the backs of the 
canvases before he peeled off the paintings. Even 
then he laid them all flat in a pile, that not one 
should suffer before the others ; that they might die 
together. 

He put the matches ready near the tiny firegrate, and, 
taking the strips of wood they had been stretched on, 
broke them smaller, arranged them behind the bars, 
and brought the paintings near, that he should not need 
to open his eyes and see them in the fight of their own 
blaze. He felt about to be sure that not one was over¬ 
looked. There was not one. 

He knelt before the fire grate and fit the wood and 
closed his eyes. When he felt the heat about him, and 
the brightness of the blaze shone through his eyelids, 
he picked up the paintings and pressed them into the 
firegrate together. He felt to know if he had neglected 
one. They all were burning. 


CHAPEL GROVE 


173 


“ 0 God,” he said, “ if, when I have died, I am to come 
back and live another life upon this earth, let me not 
again be made an artist. Or if I must be—if what I 
leave off with, I have to start again with—let me be 
born anywhere but in this city. O God, remember this 
moment when you make me again. 


PART III 


BOLSOVER STREET 


Chapter I 

Arnold groped for his ideals among bright illusions 
and frustrating shadows, as a man who gathers apples 
by moonlight. His harvest was leaves. He could 
think of nothing but food and warmth, comfort and 
safety from privation; and again food, and again 
food. 

The stomach has no ideals. The artist who is ravenous 
for victuals is no more an artist than the joint he covets. 
Let the reek of savoury stewing steak—hot, ugly meat— 
reach his nostrils then and he will admit, if to none 
except himself, that art is only art; but food is food. 
The pungent gusts from frying-pans played havoc with 
Arnold’s ideals. He no longer desired above all things 
to paint a picture which would make men ask who had 
created so intense and rare a thing ; he longed, with 
desire more desperate than art had ever drawn from 
him, for one or two days’ work with the promise of 
more. 

Throughout the days his fingers were so stiff from 
cold that he would have been unable to hold a brush 
had he had commissions. 

He could not have been more incapable of serving 
art had Fate, instead of dooming him to slow starvation, 
decreed that his hands should be beaten out by a black¬ 
smith’s hammer such as was proudly displayed on the 
crest of Birmingstow. 

He was not quite starving ; he had had a meal the 
day before. He was not quite destitute ; he had a little 
money left. But the terror of what would happen in 
175 


176 HAMMER MARKS 

the days when it was gone prevented him from spending 
it. 

His greatest fear for when it would be gone was the 
dread of having no shelter, and being arrested for having 
no visible means of support. His ideas on that subject 
coupled to imprisonment were vague and alarmingly 
out of all proportion to what probably would have 
happened had his fears materialised. To guard against 
the catastrophe he had sewn twenty-two shillings in 
the linin g of his waistcoat to produce if ever the necessity 
arose of proving that he was not without visible means 
of support. 

His mother had been a wing spread between him and 
the knowledge of the ways of the unfortunate. He 
was childishly ignorant and apprehensive of many 
things pertaining to poverty; he thought that a work- 
house was only for those who were very old and infirm ; 
he knew nothing of relieving officers he doubted if the 
twenty-two shillings would be enough to prove what 
it was sewn up for. 

Born and bred where he had been, where poverty 
was a profession, it might be deemed that his ignorance 
of poverty betokened simplicity. Possibly it did. He 
only knew that it seemed easier to pass an eating-house 
if he touched the cloth-covered shillings, telling himself 
that if he wished—if he were more of a coward or less 
of a coward, he was not quite sure which—that he could 
go up to the counter and order a sausage and mash for 
threepence, and that that knowledge made it easier 
to pass the shop. He believed then, and proved later, 
that it is easier to do without a meal if one has money 
in one’s pocket than if one has none. 

Although he had paid Mary back in full, and been 
incompetent at first in being sufficiently sparing to tide 
over the ill days which would come, he still had shillings 
besides those placed for when he would have to walk 
the streets at night as well as day. But it was the 
twenty-two which saved him most meals. He could 
feel their shape without obvious movement. When at 
middle day he came level with an eating-house—and to 


BOLSOVER STREET 


177 


him there seemed one to every lamp-post in White¬ 
chapel, and hamlets of them in Limehouse—he always 
stopped ; he had to stop ; his stomach stopped, and the 
rest of his body, being attached (unfortunately, he 
thought), stopped with it. The windows were always 
rippled with condensing steam, through the trickles, 
as through the spaces between railings, shivering, he 
saw the diners eating and perspiring. They were men 
in work, packed so closely on the narrow seated benches 
that they were only enabled to eat by means of neckwork 
and wristplay. The cross-legged tables were so narrow 
that they had their plates of meat and vegetables, 
toad-in-the-hole, or stew before them packed round 
inconsequently with saucers of pudding and crocks of 
tea. Yet, although there was scarcely room for the 
mustard-pot, and the table looked like a cairn of hot 
meals built up from the floor, each man knew which 
plate of stewed fruit and custard or apple pastry was 
his, and took it when he emptied his plate. Plain 
dinners were sixpence, ninepence, and a shilling. At 
each window Arnold spread his fingers on his shillings, 
each one two meals, two, three, or more days of life—- 
no, not really that; there was lodging to be considered ; 
but he liked to think that food only was necessary to 
keep a man alive. 

He knew all the eating-houses in Whitechapel and 
Limehouse, and what they had on certain days of the 
week, and which ones had a grating from the basement 
through which the cooking smell came steaming around 
one, permeating the clothes, saturating the body with 
the odour of food, and inflating the lungs—the lungs so 
near the stomach—as one breathed it. 

When he had been near as many eating-houses as he 
could bear, he went to a baker’s and bought a loaf, took 
it to a gateway or somewhere where people would not 
stare because he was unusually well dressed, and eat it. 
He would eat it all. He would eat so much that he felt 
full of bread, and if anyone had offered him a hot meat 
pie—a thing he continually longed for—he would have 
been compelled to refuse it. 

Mh 


178 


HAMMER MARKS 


Next he would go back to stand before the eating- 
house windows and laugh at them privately and touc 
the shillings. 

He was as regular in this as were the workmen m 
their own meals, for he found it was useless applying 
for work in the dinner-hour, when the heads of nrms 
were not at their businesses. 

He was afraid he was becoming a familiar figure m 
Whitechapel and Limehouse. But he intended to leave 
it ‘ there was nowhere else there where he had the excuse 
of’ hope to ask for possible work. He had selected 
Limehouse in the hope of getting work on the dock as 
a labourer, or as anything ; but the attempt had been 

fU He had told his landlord that he would not be want¬ 
ing his lodgings for another week, but would be leaving 
on Monday. This was Sunday. Sunday was a detest¬ 
able day to him ; there was then nowhere for him to 
apply for work. However hopeless his applications 
were on other days of the week, they served to provide 
a motive for existence. Useless and exhausting as the 
treading of the treadmill of work seeking was, it was better, 
he knew, than the only alternative—leaning against 
an itching post at a street corner while his youth died, 
and his brain became as pumice stone, and the two most 
contemptible of all traits (self-pity and bitterness) 
spread their fungi on his dead ambitions. Often he 
looked at himself in his few inches of shaving mirror 
to see if he was becoming like the men who lounged at 
corners ; if his features sagged and his eyes seemed 
painted with water-colour on segments of egg-shell. 
He listened to his voice to note if it had the ineffectual 
whine or pall-bearer’s melancholy of theirs. He kept 
verve in his voice. His features did not sag, but they 
were settled and immobile, like—even in texture and 
colour—to a plaster cast taken after death ; but his 

eyes lived. _ 

It was Sunday ; he had nowhere to go. It was as 
well, for he was unable to walk owing to water-blisters 
packed between his toes and the soreness of his soles. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


179 


He had spent all the morning tending to his feet, cutting 
the skin away, bathing them ; and, since he had no 
ointment, coating them with margarine and wrapping 
them up. 

It was about three in the afternoon. He had managed 
to sleep away the annoyance of dinner-time. Of course, 
all day long it was dinner-time for him, but civilisation 
had established the time for a meal at middle day and 
he lived in the centre of obtrusive civilisation. 

From the pile of clothes upon his bed he had risen 
stiff, and feeling the winter chill upon him. He had 
attended to his feet again, and now sat before the 
window. He was wearing such clothes as could be 
worn over others. His cap was pulled well down over 
his ears. Because he could not bear the compression 
of his boots, his feet were in his suit-case and were packed 
in by the one article which was given him as bed-linen— 
a piece of brown blanket. And his body was as ice ; 
he could scarcely believe that blood must be warm to 
flow. 

He chose to sit at the window, not because the view 
was pleasing ; it was not (the iron platform and rail of 
the fire emergency-exit was level with the sill; a builder’s 
yard was beneath ; a blank wall, a road, and a batch of 
flat fronted houses was beyond) ; but because the view 
from the window was the same whether the room was 
beautifully appointed or what it was. The furniture 
consisted of an iron bedstead and straw mattress, a 
chair, and a table, on which was a broken basin and a 
water-jug, which by rights belonged to the next room, 
as that had three beds in it. The walls had at one time 
been distempered in green, blue, or grey. Arnold could 
not be sure which, although he had once rubbed them 
with a piece of wet paper to find out. 

Arnold hated the room. He hated it in the light 
because of the meagreness of it; he hated it in the dark 
because of the things he touched. Once he had tried to 
clean the floor with cold water and no brushes, but the 
dirt had worked up into a grey paste and sickened him. 

The room was on the top floor of the hotel. Arnold 


180 


HAMMER MARKS 


was not sure of the name of the hotel. It was written 
upon the window in Danish. It accommodated foreign 
sailors who came ashore while their ships were in the 
docks. There was no other regular lodger beside Arnold , 
the same sailors seldom occupied the beds more than 
three nights. Arnold had grown accustomed to their 
varieties, and tolerant towards their abandon. He 
knew that ignoble festivals of lusts on shore were a 
reaction from many months of sex and sin privations 
at sea, and would be followed by many months more of 
enforced clean manliness. Also he believed that men 
of great sins seldom had little souls. After the first 
shock he was tolerant; unto a man his conscience. 

After his first night in the hotel with the Danish name 
he knew perfectly well that most of the sailors gave 
themselves up to debauchery while their boats were in 
the docks ; debauchery plain, debauchery complicated. 
If he stood on the iron landing of the emergency staircase 
and looked round an angle of the wall he could see, any 
night, three windows of a brothel. The inmates believed 
that the windows faced a blank wall, and so fixed no 
blinds. The seamen who were in the rooms when Arnold 
made the discovery were not drunk. He was surprised ; 
he had already seen so many of them helplessly, or 
quarrelsomely, or joyously drunk, but he concluded that 
some took their sins seriously, soberly, conserving all 
their appetites to one principal sin, making it a king 
sin. If anything was needed to dispel Arnold’s first 
belief that the foreign sailors, since they looked to be 
fine men, were fine men, it was a full knowledge of how 
nights were spent in the next room to his own. 

There was only pretence at privacy in the hotel. 
Double doors which had communicated between the 
two bedrooms had been replaced by two boards nailed 
upright. The room with three beds was light all night, 
owing to a street lamp which stood beneath the window 
and shot its rays on any man that moved above bed- 
level. He saw them fight, he saw them rob, he saw them 
smuggle women in, he saw them drunk to beastliness and 
grow lavish in unnaturalness, sinning against sin. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


181 


Arnold had moved his bed so that he would not see 
the other room at night. Not until after quite a week 
in Limehouse did he cease to feel horror ; life was life, 
but, thank God, it was not his life which he saw. To 
have the ideals of an artist allowed a man to be where 
others could not be without passing censor on his 
fellows, condoning or condemning. A priest may pass 
unsullied through a sin plague, but he cannot pass 
without upbraiding. A roue may pass through a welter 
of sin without abhorrence, but he cannot pass without 
approving by jealousy or envy. The artist who has 
nothing left but his ideals, even though he has lapsed 
from art, may pass unsullied, and yet without blaming 
or praising his fellows. Life is life ; his life can be his 
own life ; their life can be theirs. The ideals which were 
fashioned first to serve his art will wait upon his soul 
and serve it, because his art is his soul. 

His ideals are as a fierce white flame which burns 
contaminating things before they can touch his artist 
spirit. His ideals tell him that he may not sin, because 
whatever stains him will show as stain upon his work. 
A man’s face shows what manner of man he is ; an 
artist’s work shows what manner of man the artist is. 
Arnold believed this. Also he believed that though art 
was dead for him, yet he could not defame his dead. 
So was he saved by the service of his ideal from being 
touched by the fife around him. 

The artist can paint in hell and not be scorched, even 
as he can walk in heaven and not applaud the choir. 
Arnold at that time believed in a heaven and a hell, 
but not in a hereafter. 

All his fife his ideals had served him ; but for that, 
born and bred among the lowest classes of society, he 
would have been of that class now, but he was not; 
an artist belongs to no class of society. 

Arnold sat on in complete physical misery, complete 
mental misery. He was soul-sick, heart weary, and 
had collapsed emotionally. He asked no questions of 
himself ; he just bared his patience in bowed recognition 
to the hearse-hour as it passed. He watched the town 


182 


HAMMER MARKS 


twilight fall. In the clear daylight a gauze curtain was 
lowered down the sky, and behind it another and another, 
until the succession of curtains veiled the light sufficiently 
for day to be twilight. The gauze curtains continued 
slowly to fall behind the front ones of distance-grey, and 
the colours showed through—violet and smoky lapis- 
lazuli—until it was night in the town. The street lamps 
were struck into shine. The gauze curtains were 
lapped under and among each other in a fold, and then 
rolled up, revealing other curtains, but of these the 
gauze was silver, with apparently a rose-coloured one 
right at the back. The rose-medallion of the moon was 
seen in its dusty satin showcase. It gave ah around 
the tint of cameo shell. Arnold sat on, barren to the 
impregnation of the magical beauty of God’s twilight 

^ifwas a night for artists ; Arnold had forsworn his 
artistry. He grew restless under the witching spell 
which the loveliness soon laid on him. He knew that 
art was wooing him again ; that she, who was so real 
to him, was calling ; a little mockery was in her voice. 
“ I have never lost a lover yet; not one ; not one of 
them all; and I am as young and old as loveliness. 
I have never lost one lover yet. I did not lose the red- 
haired man; I will not lose you. 

Arnold spoke aloud. “ When I have eaten I shall 
laugh at you. It is being weak that puts these fancies 
into my head. I will go and get something to eat. 
But he remained perfectly still. “ I will not begin to 
talk to myself like lonely men always do.” Even that 
he said aloud. 

He sat aching for his paint-box, that he might trans¬ 
mit to canvas the lighted windows, the fretted housetops, 
and a great height of sky. The yeast of art is not easily 
separated from the mixed temperament. 

“ I have never let one of my lovers go. Not one. 
Do you know what I do when they jilt me ? Look at 
the moon while I tell you. I make them mad. I make 
them hanker for poisons ; I make them go stand by 
deep water and fling up their arms with a cry, and fall; 


BOLSOVER STREET 


183 


some of them hang by a rope from a hook in the ceiling. 
There is no hook in this ceiling. Yes. I know that 
you have looked ; do not look again now, but keep your 
eyes upon the moon; it helps me to make my lovers 
lightheaded. Not one of mine but has worshipped it. 
There is no hook, but—there is that iron platform. 
Perhaps I shall cover up the moon for you soon. If I 
do not, you can lean over—a little too far. Four 
stories is enough. There are bricks stacked beneath. 
You remember ; you looked. Open the window and 
look again to be sure they have not moved them. Go 
on to the platform and lean over and look.” 

“ I shall laugh at you again when I have eaten,” said 
Arnold. “ I shall laugh at you now.” He laughed on 
the pitch of the whistle of a timid man who whistles 
in a dark lane to assure himself he is not afraid. 

“ You are afraid to go on to the platform. You 
always were a coward. You have always known that 
you were a coward. You have always wanted not to be 
a coward. Go out on to the platform.” 

A cold perspiration beaded Arnold’s forehead. He 
closed his eyes and did not see the moon, but he had 
stared at it so fixedly that on the blackness of his 
shut lids the moon and its halo were depicted 
incandescently. 

“ I am not a coward. I used to think that I was 
because I tremble before doing anything which I would 
rather not do. But I always do it! I used to think 
that although I had no physical fear and no moral fear, 
that I had fear of another kind because I trembled. 
Now I know that to tremble first and then perform, 
despite the shrinking, is the highest form of courage. 
If you want me to go on to the balcony you will have 
to try other taunts. And then I shall not go. Tell me 
that I should be better dead ; I know I should.” He 
rose and stumbled, with his feet muffied in the packing. 
He kicked the blanket away. “ Tell me,” he cried, 
“ that there is no one in the world who cares if I five 
or die ; I know there is not. Tell me that I am going to 
die of starvation like the red-haired man ; I know that 


184 


HAMMER MARKS 


I am, and—I—will—not—go—out—on to the platform, 
and I will not drink poison like Chatterton, and I will 
not drown myself nor hang myself : I will go out and 
eat! ” 

He paused; he found that he was shouting. He 
stumbled about feeling for his boots. He spoke again, 
quietly but aloud. “ I know that in the end I shall go 
out on to the platform ; but first I shall go mad. I do 
not believe it is hunger makes me talk to myself. I 
wish that I believed in God—but how can I ? How can 
I? ” 

He stood upright and still. And then the most 
wonderful thing in his life happened to him. Peace 
that was almost blissfulness came upon him. He felt 
that he was not alone in the room. The feeling which 
had come to him in the room of his empty house on the 
night he burned his pictures came to him again, but 
differently stressed. He knew that he was not alone 
in the room—not alone in the world. Someone was 
near him now, although he was the only living person 
in the room. 

He stood upright and still. Above his left shoulder 
he felt the lightness of a hand, as if it rested upon his 
own shape in space. It did not touch him, but was 
curved over the shoulder of a space which surrounded 
himself and was of himself. 

He raised his left hand and laid it above the space of 
the hand which helped and comforted him. He felt 
nothing, but he knew the shape of it from the size and 
spread of his own fingers. It was not his mother’s hand. 
It was not his father’s hand as he remembered it. It 
was a man’s hand, and bigger than the shape of his 
own. He waited in calm for a moment. The hand was 
drawn away, and his finger-tips sank and touched the 
nap upon the cloth of his coat. 

“ That was strange,” he thought. “ I will not go 
out; I will lie down and sleep.” 

He did not ask himself why he had come to this 
decision ; he would not have known the answer had he 
asked. He stretched himself upon the bed, and felt to 


BOLSOVER STREET 


185 


pull his coats over him, but fell to slumber while his 
hand reached out. 

The moon lifted higher into the sky. It went from 
view, but continued to pour light down the level of the 
window-pane and to spill it on the floor just under the 
window sill. 

Cherished by sleep, Arnold woke with fresh energies. 
He did not recognise where he was at first. He looked 
at the narrow vat of molten silver sunk against the 
window wall. Someone was talking ; he realised that 
some seamen were being shown the next room for 
optional accommodation. He cursed them for breaking 
his sleep, and brought his stiff limbs together in an 
endeavour to garner warmth and encourage sleep to 
return. 

“ It’s of no use,” he thought, “ I might as well get 
up. A walk will warm me if my blistered feet will let 
me trot around. Oh, you are getting on, my son ; you 
did not talk out loud that time. Mind you don’t start 
it again. You go over to the ‘ Coffee Dog 5 at the 
corner of West India Dock Road, have a cup of tea, and 
sit by the stove until your blood’s thoroughly warm, 
and then keep it circulating till it’s bye-bye time again.” 

He put both feet to the ground ; they were sore but not 
painful. The seamen in the next room were sure to 
open his door in a minute. They usually came in to 
see who their neighbour was, more to assure themselves 
that their property was safe than to molest him. 

He glanced through the openings of the boarded 
doorway into the next room to see what chance of a 
quiet night he had. There was a candle alight. One 
man was about to wash in a tin bowl. He was a massive 
man, with dog-breasts covered with black hair. The 
second man looked handsome in the candlelight; he 
was taking the pieces of blanket from the two single 
beds and strewing them on the double bed. Evidently 
the men were going to sleep together for warmth, feince 
they made preparation they were anticipating having 
a night’s rest. 

“ That’s good,” thought Arnold. “ To-night I shall 


186 


HAMMER MARKS 


not have any trouble trying to convince them that I’m 
not in their bed.” 

As Arnold put his boots on, the man who had washed 
entered the room. Apparently he could not see in the 
semi-darkness, but Arnold’s eyes had grown accustomed 
to the lack of light. He watched in silence as the man 
moved from one wall to another, touching things 
tentatively—the bed, the table, the chair. Arnold was 
seated at the foot of the bed, and remained still. He 
knew that the man would touch him in a moment. 

The man in the next room called, “ Have you gone 
downstairs, mate ? ” 

To Arnold’s surprise, the man before him did not 
answer, but remained rigid, his hand outstretched, his 
head turned across his shoulder ; as still as if he were a 
hidden photographer attempting to take a snapshot of 
a wild bird in its cover. The man in the next room 
extinguished the candle and went down the stairs, and 
the silence became hideous. 

“ There is someone in the room ? ” said the man 
quietly. 

“So he is English,” thought Arnold, but he spoke 
no word, and he breathed secretly. 

“ Who is in the room ? ” said the man. 

The moon passed over the ridge of the roof and left 
no hint of its light in the room. He heard the stretching 
of the seaman’s sleeve along his arm as he moved it 
towards him. He wondered where the man would 
touch him. He wondered what each of them would do 
at the touch. He knew from the man’s tone when he 
had spoken that he was not certain that there was 
anyone in the room. It had been as much question 
as statement. 

Arnold took advantage of the minute’s respite before 
he was touched to form his intentions as to what he 
should not do when the hand came in contact with him. 
He relaxed his muscles that they might not be gathered 
to draw away. He prepared for the moment that he 
might not exclaim. He wondered if the man would 
attack him, or give a startled oath and withdraw. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


187 


“ After all,” he thought, “ I must have been mistaken 
in thinking that the hand reached out nearer towards 
me, or it would have touched me before this. He had 
a wild impulse to advance towards the hand and meet 
it, but he checked the impulse. He wondered where it 
would touch him. 

It touched his own hand, which rested on the bedrail. 

It touched so lightly that it only brushed the fine 
hairs. It continued to move about the back of his hand 
with unbearable slowness. The fingers which touched 
his were warmer than his own; they were sensitive of 
touch, following a vein ; it seemed almost as if there was 
a brain in the fingers, questing and questioning. 

Arnold wondered what the man needed to know more 
than that he had found whom he sought. 

The fingers touched Arnold’s sleeve. The man gave 
a startled cry and sprang away. It puzzled Arnold 
that the man should feel no alarm in touching his hand 
but yet be startled when he touched his cufi. 

“ Why did you not answer when I spoke ? ” asked 

the man. . _ . „ 

“ Why should I ? You’ve got no right in my room, 

said Arnold. 

“ Have you got a candle or a hght or anything r 

“ No,” said Arnold. “ What do you want it for ? ” 

“ I want to have a look at you. I am going to have 


a iOOK ao ^uu. . j 

“ It is not one of my good-looking days, said Arnold.^ 
“ Perhaps it won’t be if you are not on the straight,” 
said the man, as he went to fetch the candle. He fit 
the candle on the landing and entered the room again. 
He regarded Arnold from the doorway for a second 
before he placed the candle on the table. 

“ Humph ! You look all right,” he said. 

Arnold liked the look of the hirsute man. He looked 
so strong, so well fed, so full of energy that it was 
good to look at him. 

“ Sit down,” said Arnold. 

The man twirled a chair and sat astride it, his arms 
folded on the back. 


188 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ What did you come in here for ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ ’Cause it’s always best to know who you are next 
to in a strange crib.” 

“ That’s all right then. But that is not what I want 
to know so much as why, when you found out where I 
was in the dark and touched me, you took no notice, 
but as soon as you touched my clothing you jumped.” 

“ Want to know that, do you ? ” 

“ I should rather,” said Arnold. 

“ Believe in religion ? ” asked the man. 

“ No, the reverse.” 

“ Believe in God ? ” asked the man. 

“ I should not like to think that there is not one ; 
that’s as far as I get,” said Arnold. 

“ Believe in spirits ? ” 

“ No—yes. Wait a minute,” said Arnold, “ I don’t 
know. I’ve had a funny thing happen to me.” 

“ Have you ? Well, I’ve had lots,” said the man. 
“ I thought you was a spirit. That’s why. Spirits 
don’t wear warm clothes. That’s why again. When I 
come in here I felt that somebody was in the room but 
I could not see anybody. When I touched your hand 
it was limp, human-like, but not assertive ; I’ve felt 
a spirit hand like that—often.” 

“ Look here,” said Arnold, “I’m not laughing at 
you. Tell me about it.” 

“ Laughing at me ? I should not think you was. 
What’s the wherefore ? If you’d had spells of the 
lonelies like a seaman gets in the night watches you 
would not be so ready to talk of laughing and such things, 
sonny. You are only a youngster, so you’ve had no 
trouble to speak of, but when you are siok to death of 
the daylight, and wish you’d never been hatched, you 
don’t know what a comfort it is to know you are not 
alone, but that there’s them you can’t see a-weeping 
for you when you can’t weep yourself, a-thinking for 
you when you can’t think ; and letting it into your mind 
what to do or what not to do. And I don’t believe in 
religion, and I don’t believe in spiritualism, and you’ll 
catch your death of cold if you don’t put your boots on. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


189 


Good-night, sonny, and if you’ve got a mother go back 
home to her ; you had not ought to be sitting white and 
empty-looking in an empty room like you are. What¬ 
ever it is you’ve done wrong, you go back ; she’ll forgive 
you.” 

“ I cannot go back. She’s dead,” said Arnold. 
“ And I have not done anything wrong. I don’t believe 
you get punished for the wrong you do : I believe you 
suffer for the good that’s in you. But I say, I’d like to 
shake hands if you are going. I have lost my faith in 
human nature just lately. I have not met anybody 
worth honesty for months, but I’d like to shake.” 

The chair creaked as the man tilted forward in it 
and put out his hand. 

“ Don’t you start judging people, good and bad, like 
that, sonny. Everybody’s all right for their own kind. 
Folk are just so many balls spilled over the world ; 
billiard balls, pretty painted india-rubber balls, glass 
balls, lead balls, one or two gold ones, and all kinds. 
All the pretty painted rubber balls that roll about the 
same track keep the pictures on, and the billiard balls 
that keep between the cushes keep their shape. None 
of them are better or worse if they are kept with their 
own kind. The trouble is they won’t, and the pretty 
paint gets knocked off by the ivory, the glass gets 
broken by the cricket ball—all one jolly family. Don’t 
you start picking good from bad ; a bad ball means a 
good one dropped in among the wrong kind.” 

“ What kind of ball ami?” asked Arnold. 

With a jerk the man thrust his hand into a breast 
pocket. When he drew it forth he held a Chinese 
puzzle ball of ivory. The puzzle was to find out how it 
had been made ; there was no sure way of knowing. 

He extended his hand, with the ivory pillowed in the 
cushions of his padded palm. The puzzle ball was 
fragile and strange rather than beautiful. It had been 
carved from a single piece of ivory, but it consisted of 
several balls, each not thicker than a shell, one within 
another, one within the others. " I brought it from 
Hong Kong,” said the seaman. Each ball was 


190 


HAMMER MARKS 


elaborately carved and fretted with holes of the pattern, 
so that one could see the other carved and fretted balls, 
loose and ready to ricochet within. The outer shell was 
carved with dramatic figures ; the next with buildings, 
temples, pagodas, and huts; the next with leafless 
flowers ; the next with deities. Arnold suspected that 
the patterns had been made along the fines of, and to 
cover, the scars made by whatever tools had been thrust 
through the fret-holes to scoop the ball within each 
ball; but yet the innermost pill was polished, and 
showed round as a finished pearl, although there was 
no judging if it were efiptical. The whole had been 
fashioned with a craftsmanship as patient and fierce 
as fife’s. 

It seemed that the complete thing must— must — 
have been built up from within, starting with the 
untouched ivory pill, and enclosing, and enclosing in 
the covering cases ; yet because it came from a single 
block of elephant bone it must have been made from the 
outside. How the puzzle ball had been made Arnold 
did not know. 

“ Is that like what I am ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ Ask yourself,” said the hairy man. 

“ What kind of a ball are you ? ” asked Arnold. 

The seaman very swiftly turned his hand over, with 
the mat of black hair on the back of it uppermost. 
The puzzle ball did not smash ; it fell and rolled over 
the dirty boards. The man picked it up and examined 
it. 

“ Funny it doesn’t break,” he said. “ I have dropped 
it before.” He put the delicate, unbroken thing into 
his pocket again. “ That’s my pal coming upstairs. 
He mythers if he loses me for a minute. Are you coming 
for a tow round with me ? ” 

“ The more the merrier,” pronounced the fair man, 
putting a foot within the room. The new man was of 
the type which Arnold most admired ; his moustache 
was bright and big, and was brushed away from his 
lips with the fall of bird of Paradise plumage. Arnold 
coveted their companionship, but he knew the men had 


BOLSOVER STREET 


191 


laid themselves out for a drinking bout, with probably 
a woman finale. He shook his head. 

The man with the bird of Paradise moustache pulled 
his friend from the room by throwing an arm around 
him. The hairy man gave to the pull with a jolt of 
his cumbersome frame, and the door closed. 

Arnold looked at the place where a knob or lock had 
been. “ It must be one of the splendid things of life,” 
he thought, “ to have a friend.” 


Chapter II 

Before Arnold finished getting his boots on he felt 
in his pocket. The rasping of paper told him that he 
had touched the cigarette paper which several times 
had avoided his search. He took it out, unwrinkled it 
with thrusts of his finger, and made a cigarette. 

As he fit it he suspected that there were particles 
of cheese in the cigarette ; he knew that a bit of brim¬ 
stone off a match was sure to be there ; there always was 
when he made a last cigarette from the powdered tobacco 
which sifted to the bottom of his pocket. He swallowed 
very little of the tobacco dust as he made it sufficiently 
moist to stay in the paper tube. The spark found and 
ran down a channel of the overdry powder, splitting 
the paper with a seared line and touching the inevitable 
bit of brimstone. The brimstone popped, exploding 
the cigarette in a puff of tobacco powder. 

“ Well, I got one draw out of it, anyway,” said Arnold, 
in congratulatory tone. 

While he had candlelight he made his bed. He lifted 
up the blanket, thin as towelling, winked at the flame 
through the drawnthread work, and laid the blanket 
so that when he was under it his body would be away 
from the peculiar stains on the mattress. He punched 
his pillow into puffiness—the puffiness of air, not feathers. 
The pillow-case had once been a curtain with a pattern 
of little red roses. All pattern had been washed out of 
it save the red blobs of the roses which remained to 
catch his eye. He never saw them as he fell asleep 
without thinking for a second that someone had brought 
him a few raspberry rocks ; he never noticed them on 
waking without thinking that his nose had been 
bleeding in the night Then he laid all his clothes on 
192 


BOLSOVER STREET 


193 


the bed, when it looked like a stall in the Birmingstow 
Petticoat Market. 

The candle giggled as it died out. 

He put his boots on and went on to the stairs. It 
was dark, but there were sounds and smell to guide him 
down. First he heard the gramophone grinding a 
heartening song from The Yeomen of the Guard : 

What kind of plaint have I, 

Who perish in July? 

I might have had to die. 

Perchance in June. 


Next there was the smell of cookery, and then a fringe of 
warmth ; then laughter and the clatter of crocks ; and 
last was a cotton of light lying zigzag up the stairs where 
it reached from the split door-panel. 

Arnold made soft his entrance into the eating-room. 
He suspected, with reason, that he was not the apple of 
the proprietor’s eye. Because he had no meals on the 
premises the proprietor looked at him as if he accused 
him of secret starving. It piqued Arnold’s risibility 
that the landlord should expect him to have at least an 
egg and a rasher before he left the premises each morning. 
A sense of incongruity need not indicate a sense of 
humour. Arnold was flustered with shame each time 
he walked between the food-littered tables without 
sitting down to eat. 

As he stepped into the street he felt the wind as if it 
went through him and came out just as cold on the 
other side. Rabidly on the wind a song came, and the 
pinger-pang of banjo strings. Arnold could not see 
the minstrels in the vestibule of the public-house on 
the corner, but he examined the wares in a pawnshop 
so that his life might be brightened for a minute by the 
music. 

Dey want no mo’ ob de coon man’s humming ; 

De banjo’s strumming wid a ping-bing-pang. 

Ebery swell says, “ To hell. Berra find anodder gell ” 

And de gells donna care a hang. 

Nh 


194 


HAMMER MARKS 


I shall hab to goaback to Dinah. 

I shall hab to goaback and join ’er. 

Dere’s lots o’ piccaninnies kickin’ all around de floor 
Lots o’ piccaninnies—and dere’s shu’ to be some more. 
If I go back to Dinah, 

She’ll smash up me old banjo, 

For marriage it am no refiner. 

But I’ll hab to goahome and join ’er ; 

And dis coon don’t want to go. 


Thought Arnold, “ That’s one thing I can be grateful 
for ; I’m not married.” 


Der ain’t no rhyme, and der ain’t no reason, 

De coon-song season, it am just bust bang ! ^ 

You can tell, you can yell, you can go on shouting “ Well! ” 
Dey don’t want no tangy-tang. 

I shall hab to go aback to Dinah. 

I shall- 


“ I wonder if that song is funny ? ” thought Arnold. 
“ I wish I had a sense of humour, so that I could tell. 
I wonder if I should be a comical figure in a book. I 
wonder if God thinks I’m comical. I wonder if I can 
spare enough for a mug of hot tea.” 

He decided, after feeling the milled edges in his 
pocket, that he could not afford it but must have it. 
He crossed West India Hock Road to a little marble- 
tabled cafe. As he stood at the counter the display of 
cakes convinced him that he was inordinately hungry, 
and not, as he supposed, hungry in moderation. It 
was bad enough seeing the food in shop windows, but 
it was madness to resist longer when the sandwiches 
were at his elbows—ham at one and cheese at the 
other. 

“ Well,” he thought, “ there’s something to be said 
for resisting and being mad. I will have tea and a 
warm now, and something to eat later, and get a 
second warm. Brains ? Rather! ” Aloud he said, 
“ A sandwich and a mug of tea.” He raised his eye¬ 
brows at himself as he said it. 

The proprietress was Italian, but her shoulders were 


BOLSOVER STREET 


195 


passive. She asked if he wanted ham or beef or cheese. 
He selected a ham slice, with due consideration and 
titillating slowness. He sat as near the stove as he 
could and began to eat before he drank. 

Two Hindoos in fezes performed the rites of drinking 
alien coffee, two negroes syncopated their chatter with 
noisy mastication, a trio of Scandinavians of almost 
silver blondness clucked in occasional commentary; 
everyone tended to make him feel despairingly 
English. 

The pig which had surrendered its life to provide 
him with sustenance had evidently been fed in a fishing 
district. He liked fish and he liked ham, but he liked 
them separate. The mustard spoon was gritty with 
spilled sugar. He applied the mustard lavishly in the 
hope of destroying the flavour of fish ; it destroyed the 
flavour of ham. 

Among the cosmopolitan customers came a group 
essentially English. It was composed of men with 
faces charcoaled in misrepresentation of Ethiopian 
minstrels. They were the singers whom Arnold had 
listened to. They wore the raiment of the mid-Christy 
period, and as they entered they played and sang in a 
manner that did not atone for one-tenth of their garb, 
which proclaimed that they had settled down to the 
business of street singing as a paying means of livelihood, 
and had not been speared into it by misfortune. 
However, they paid for what they had. 

The genuine negroes in the corner stuck their thunbs 
in the armpits of their fancy vests, but they were easily 
outnegroed. The bass with tonsilitis went to one of the 
negroes and shook his collecting-box ; the coloured man 
shook his head simultaneously. 

Another minstrel (the bass without tonsilitis and 
almost without bass) went to the attack, and said 
pleadingly, “ Mammysick ; piccaninnysick.” 

“ It only needs,” thought Arnold, “ for the tenor to 
sing ‘ Land of Hope and Glory ’ ! ” 

“ Oh ! ” said the proprietress to him, “ it is a great 
thing being able to speak the language.” He did not 


196 


HAMMER MARKS 


know quite what she meant, but concluded that she 
thought the minstrels were speaking in the African’s 
language. 

“ Mammy cry; piccaninny cry,” said the blackened 
Englishman, still shaking his penny-box. The negro 
grinned with his blister-like bps and swaddled his thumbs 
deeper in his offensive armpits. 

“Now I wonder if that is humorous,” thought 
Arnold. 

Quite suddenly he saw a picture before his eyes as 
plainly as if a cinematograph had cast it on the asbestos 
screen, colourless but detailed. He saw naked black 
men squatting between swamp reeds and peeping at a 
proud white ship. And with no explanation for the 
change he mentally visualised immediately afterwards 
the red-haired man swaying above a steaming coffee-cup. 

“ Just smell that did it,” he said to himself. The 
Hindoos’ cups had been refilled ; there was a sea-kiss 
in every fold of the Scandinavians’ clothes ; the negroes 
were negroes. 

“There’s one thing to be thankful for,” thought 
Arnold ; “ four of the five senses are supplied without 
expense.” 

He pushed out from the tables and went into the 
wind-lashed street. The moon was now dodging in 
and out of clouds as if it were tormented between fear 
and inquisitiveness. The thoroughfare was ochreish 
with lamplight. He turned down Elephant Street, and 
noted as he walked the elfin gladness of the gutter 
children. There were children with bare feet playing 
at football. They kicked the full-sized ball with bare 
toes and dribbled with children who wore boots. Half 
a dozen times he imagined the crunch of bare toes under 
the pounding boots, but the children were always 
shouting at top pitch of excitement. 

Their glee schooled his misery. “Misery is not 
circumstance ; it is a state of thought rather than of 
being,” he thought. “ Why should I be miserable ? 
These poor little brats are not. We are wonderful 
creations. Neglect a cat or a dog or a bird, and it dies ; 


BOLSOVER STREET 


197 


starve us and perish us with cold, and we live on and 
live on.” He winced ; a boot had crushed toes. He 
heard the thing happen, but he heard no cry. The boy 
who had been trodden limped out of the game and 
leaned in an angle of the railway arch. He shut his 
eyes and rocked his tiny body against the walls of the 
angle. Tears squeezed out from between his shut lids, 
and his mouth worked. 

The boy opened his eyes. He did not look at Arnold ; 
he followed with his glance the progress of the game. 
“ Goal! ” he shouted, and hugged his foot. 

“ I am born of the gutter,” said Arnold. “ Little 
as I have to be proud of, that is something of a ribbon 
to wear. My slum birth ought to help me here in Lime- 
house. But it doesn’t. I ought to feel at home, in my 
own country, among my own people ; but I do not. 
I am alien. According to all common sense, it 
should be easier for me to drag through a month here 
than it would be for—say a man in the Civil Service. 
Yet it isn’t; this place could not be more detestable to 
him than it is to me, hungry or not hungry.” 

He turned into Four Horse Street. On the opposite 
side of the road a man who sold hot chestnuts had 
finished business for the day and was taking off his 
coat in a mean little fruit-shop. He returned to his 
barrow, and, after pushing it a few yards down the 
street, emptied the pan of glowing embers into the 
gutter. 

From their play-holes came galloping wild little 
children. They lay down to the red coal and puffed 
them to flame. Then with paper and garbage they 
started bonfires about roadway and pavement. 

Arnold crossed the street. He was of constabulary 
physique, and this at times had been of service to him 
and at times the reverse. It certainly did not cow 
the roast-chestnut man, who glowered at him and said, 
“ You’ll be able to recognise me again ? ” 

Arnold continued to stare intently at the man, 
wishing thus to irritate him to provide an excuse for 
violence. 


198 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ Shan’t yer ? ” demanded the man. 

“ I shall.” 

“ An’ I shall he able to tell yon,” snarled the man. 
He took up the handles of his barrow and went trundling 
it away from his shop. Seemingly he garaged elsewhere. 
As he reached the corner he shouted back, “ An’ yer 
little dog ! ” 

“ Wit,” thought Arnold. 

The children danced through the blazes, flirting their 
tattered dresses in the brand-new beauty of fire ; small, 
drab pagans worshipping brightness. The giver of 
these joys returned to his shop, took up his coat, and 
passed into an inner room. 

Arnold was fortunate ; he found the police officer 
he sought almost promptly . “ Oh, they are always at 

it,” said the constable, in response to what struck him 
as a crank request. 

“ But I can put you on the man that started it,” 
exclaimed Arnold. “I’ll go to the shop and fetch 
him out.” 

“ It won’t do any harm if I warn him, anyhow.” 

The little fruit-store looked repellently cold with 
that suggestion of chill which is given by piled-up 
vegetables ; cabbages which have had the frost on them ; 
celery ; oranges which suggested to the teeth the ice of 
their wine ; green lemons ; potatoes to which the soggy 
earth still clung, clay cold. A man shuffled out from 
behind the inner door, thrusting his way through a 
canopy hanging of stringed onions and viscid rabbit- 
skins. His face had the texture and colour of a bruised 
pomegranate, and his brown eyes and teeth showed as 
bad seeds in the bursts of pomegranate rind. He was 
not the man who had tipped the hot ashes. 

No ! No man who roast the chestnuts lived there. 
No, the gentleman make some little, little mistake. 
The man made a beating movement with his cedarwood 
hands. 

“ Well, you’d better let me have a bucket of water to 
put it out,” said the officer. 

Slightly dissatisfied, Arnold walked away without 


BOLSOVER STREET 


199 


decision, without fixed destination. He walked slowly 
because of soreness ; he walked sadly because of the 
playing children who had no saviour. 

Down a side street, again he saw the moon, now lifted 
like a vision of the Holy Grail above the sluggish river 
into which, beneath it, it had spilled some of its precious 
golden blood. 

For a moment he forgot the children. Moon-bemused, 
this broom-stick knight walked nearer to see the purge of 
the precious stain on the river ripples. The darkling 
background, the half-seen, half-imagined foreground, 
the spill of radiance on the lava dullness, all 
made him long for his palette again, that he might 
show to the mil lion who do not see, what beauteous 
tones fie between brown and purple, purple and grey, 
and grey and brown. 

He stood at various points along the quay to choose 
what his picture should embrace did he intend to paint 
it. A little jetty ran out to a landing-stage ; he would 
avoid that; the quickened colour behind the window- 
blinds of the hut office would be disturbing. He found 
his point of vantage, and regarded his painting on the 
canvas of his mind, and forgot that he was sore and 
pierced by cold. 

The ripples were stilled for a moment; the rose shape 
of the moon swayed full-blown on the water for the 
moment, and then the flower broke open, over¬ 
blown, and the scattered petals of it danced upon the 

tide. ii- 

There were children on the quay, and their wise 
nonsense reached him past his moon-dreams. He 
shivered, and screwed his body to and fro at the hips, 
chafing slight warmth from his tighter garments. The 
quay was about five hundred yards long, and had a 
sheer drop of many feet to the water, but there was no 
rail or safeguard along it. The children playing there 
were tiny children, three, four, and five years of age. 
There were no houses near enough for anyone to hinder 
a mishap. The quay was backed by warehouses, gloomy 
with Sabbath desertion, and the children were playing 


200 


HAMMER MARKS 


at shop with wares of mud and refuse upon a doorstep. 
The river called them. 

Stealthily urgent, the river called with gasping 
insistency. It did call. He went back to the edge to 
listen to it. Yes, it called ; it called him, called him 
with a taunting plash and scoffing withdrawal, as if it 
said “ Bah ! ” 

“ Bah ! It cannot be colder under the water than it 
is in the freezing air.” 

Arnold knew precisely what it was to drown. He 
had once been revived after lying unconscious in the 
water for a short while. Now he looked down at the 
callous river as he went over the incident in his mind. 
It had not been too bad to bear again. It was when he 
was about eighteen—in the summer when he was 
eighteen in the April; 1905. The heat had suffused 
him with desire to swim in one of the baths which the 
Birmingstow City Council built about the city. Having 
no friend who could or would teach him the strokes, 
he went alone. There were many bathers on his first 
night. He noticed that those who were having instruc¬ 
tion kept to the shallow end, and he thought it best to 
be with them. He watched the manner of accomplished 
diving, then raised his hands, locked his thumbs, 
leaned from the hips, and tilted into the shallow water. 

His head struck the enamel bricks with a crack ; he 
was more than five feet ten inches in his height, and 
the shallow end was only four feet deep. He rolled 
over and over like a ninepin under the spout of a rain¬ 
water butt before a man assisted him up the slippery 
steps. 

After a while he chatted with the man who had helped 
him. 

“ Had enough for the first time ? ” said the man, 
chuckling. 

“ I have really, but I shall have to dive in again or 
my nerve will be gone, and I want to be able to face 
water again,” said Arnold. 

“ Well, you won’t think of diving if you do go in ? ” 
asked the man. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


201 


“ I shall never dive again if I don’t,” said Arnold, 

“ and it’s silly to flop.” . 

“ Then you go in at the deep end, and I’ll wait m 
the water to support you to the side.” 

“ I’ll be glad if you would. I’m as right as a trivet 
again ndw. I’ll go off the top board.” 

The man gasped. “ Oh, of course, I forgot, he said, 
with a bluff laugh, “ it’s your ignorance. Only the best 
chaps go ofl the top board. I don’t go more than the 
third, and I do three-quarters of a mile on the 
trucl^o ^ ^ 

“ If you’ll be waiting in the water I shall go off the 
top,” said Arnold. “ Once, at any rate.” 

“ Ar, once, at any rate ! ” said the man, with a sneer 
of raillery. “ It looks easy, but if you fall flat you 
rip your belly open with the blow of the water. I’m not 
out to see anybody disembowelled. I’ve seen it 

once.” _ „ . , 

“ You’ll wait in the water for me ? enquired 

Arnold. , a n, -u A 

The man looked slowly up and down Arnold s body 
as if he were a student in an anatomy class seeking an 
abnormal muscle. Arnold was not evasive of the stare. 
Without being vain, he knew that his physique was 

fine ; also the man who examined to see what sort 

of animal he was was fine, but of the swarthy 

type. , ,, .. 

“ Yes, I’ll wait for you, kid, but you won t dive 
down, all the same,” was the reply. “ Kid ” and 
“ Kiddy ” are terms used in Birmingstow more as 
expressions of kindliness than familiarity. 

“ Why not? ” asked Arnold intolerantly. 

“Because when you look down at the water from the 
top board it looks miles and miles, and then miles. 
The water don’t look like water. It’s a green enamel 
pavement waiting for you. Bump ! ” 

“ You’ll wait for me then ? ” said Arnold, as they 
walked along the matting spread on the side-walk. 

“ Yes. And if you do dive—you may be a dark 
horse—as you touch the water turn up your fingers, 


202 


HAMMER MARKS 


like this—as you touch the water, mind ; it will bring 
you to the top nicely.” 

“ Shall I have time to think about it ? ” 

“ I have time to reckon up my overtime when I come 
off the third ; I should say I’d have time to do it if I 
came off the top. I’ll jump in here. Go up and look 
down and remember you have just cracked your 
skull.” 

“ I can remember that,” said Arnold ruefully. “ But 
shan’t you be too far away ? ” 

“No fear. The force of a dive would carry you 
this far.” 

Arnold, left alone, realised that all the bathers, 
having seen his mishap, had ceased swimming and were 
watching him. He walked cavalierly to the pyramid 
framework of the diving-boards and mounted the 
first step. He found that he had to climb to reach the 
next. When he stood upon the top board he felt very 
near to the ceding. Below him, the men who stood 
posed around the green lawn of water suggested a 
scene from an Eastern ballet. 

He raised his hands and locked his thumbs, leaned 
forward from the waist, and, without spring, curved 
over forward from the board. He had expected a rush 
downward and a splash ; instead, he felt the change of 
his position ; the clean, slow-motion glide of his feet 
above his head ; then the sensation of cleaving birdlike 
through the air which makes the thrill of the first high 
dive, taken calmly, done perfectly, an unrivalled shock 
of delight. Then came the little fire-flash of possible 
fear when there was nothing but green water in the 
range of his vision, when it seemed impossible that the 
water was water and not green marble. 

He prepared the curve of his fingers an instant 
before they touched water. He was in the water, but 
the sweep of his glide swept without altering the fine 
of his body from outstretched fingers to outstretched 
toes. He felt that it was so. It was ecstasy. As he 
passed levelly under the water, with the neat bricks 
running under him, he thanked heaven for a tuned 


BOLSOVER STREET 


203 


physique, which told everything it felt to his attentive 
brain. 

He was nearing something in the bright water, 
something which lay back on the greenness to shape way 
for him. It was the man who waited for him. Arnold 
touched against him, his breast ran up the man’s 
breast, and he was standing. 

“ You’ve been kidding me,” said the swarthy man. 
“ That was the most beautiful dive of its kind I have 
seen. Perfect.” 

Arnold blinked ; electric light in spots of water was 
in his eyes ; there was murmured approbation from the 
men on the sides, and the smother of them entering 
their preferred element. 

“No, really,” said Arnold, “ I have never been in 
the baths before.” 

By way of reply, the man turned on to his back and 
kicked fountains over Arnold. 

“ Don’t go away,” exclaimed Arnold. “ How am I 
going to get out ? ” 

“ Why, walk out; you are standing, aren’t you ? ” 
said the man. He turned, curled as a prawn, and 
swam under Arnold’s legs, capsising and submerging 
him in the water. 

When Arnold had floundered, swallowed water, and 
struggled to his feet again the swarthy man was floating 
some distance away, basking on the water, comfortable 
as a painted god on a painted cloud. He made little 
fin flutterings with his fingers which brought him back, 
lazily moving. 

“ You overdid that bit, kiddy,” he said. “ A duffer 
would not have floundered so much.” 

“ Have it your own way,” said Arnold. “ But 
thanks for minding me all the same. Do you mind 
swimming on a bit so that I can walk out ? My 
dressing-room is on that side.” 

The man gave a delighted shout, and again pushed 
Arnold under water. 

Arnold had learned to swim half a dozen lengths of 
the bath before he next met the swarthy man. It was 


204 


HAMMER MARKS 


upon a Saturday afternoon. He found on entering 
the baths that there was only one other swimmer 
there, and that it was his doubting but obliging 
friend. 

“ Come to learn to dive ? ” called the man, his accent 
somewhat turned from fluency by the forbidden cigarette 
which he was smoking as he slowly swam. 

“ No, I’ve come to see how many lengths I can do. 
I did six last time.” 

The man pulled at his cigarette with quick, brief 
puffs which was laughter. “ Hark at him, Bill,” he 
called to the attendant, but the attendant was dozing 
in his glass house. 

The sunlight glared through the skylight on to the 
promenade about the water. The man climbed out, and, 
after wringing his red slips, laid them in one of the 
patches of sunshine and himself lay on his back in 
another. He chatted while Arnold undressed and 
swam his first few lengths. After which he rose, and, 
going into his dressing-box, began singing a bawdy 
song, substituting a slap of his hand for certain recurrent 
words. 

Arnold found that when he had swum seven lengths 
he was almost exhausted, but as he was then in the 
shallow end, and could desist when he chose, he touched 
the rail, turned, and began the return journey. After 
several more strokes (he could only do the breast 
stroke) he found that he had “ got his second 
wind.” 

He had heard the swimmers refer to getting their 
second wind, but had not been certain what they 
meant. He had now found that when he had done 
several tired strokes more that a return of strength 
came to him, not vital energy, but a feeling that he 
could go on quietly swimming for ever without the 
exertion telling on him. 

He continued with a steady stroke which was not 
tiring. It scarcely required effort to continue ; it 
was like sleep-swimming. After the eleventh length he 
touched the bar at the deep end and turned. Four 


BOLSOVER STREET 


205 


strokes brought him well away from the side. He was 
in deep water when his strength suddenly and eollaps- 
ingly failed. He made wild kicks and plunges, trusting 
to get a second second wind, or a third wind, or anything 
which would keep him afloat. He could have dog 
paddled, but he knew nothing of the manoeuvre. “ I 
feel as if I’m filleted,” he thought. “ I am going 
under ! ” 

He shouted for help. The swarthy man did not hear 
because of his own lusty singing. The attendant 
heard, but thought that the men were noisily jesting. 
He had seen that they were friendly, and knew that the 
one was an expert swimmer and that the other was 
passable. 

Arnold sank. 

He sank, not as stone, nor even as a soaked sponge 
does, but as if a giant had stretched a hand and put 
palm to the top of his head, and slowly forced him 
down. His feet touched the bottom and he lay back¬ 
ward, straight but inclining from the upright. He 
began to rise again slowly, very slowly. When he felt 
that he must be emerging he tried to shout, but swallowed 
water. He was not near the top. He swallowed more 
water ; drew in water instead of the gracious air for 
which he was so greedy. 

Although he had seemed slow in ascending, his eyes 
were above the surface but an instant; an instant in 
which he struggled and took a great draught of water. 
He sank, again taking water ; hideous water, a swelling 
gout of water. He knew that he should not attempt 
to breathe before he reached the air, but was forced to 
attempt it. He touched the bottom. He felt riveted 
there by pegs between his toes. 

There was a crawling age of slowness in which he 
was about to rise again ; an age in which he had time 
for a milli on thoughts, yet had no thought. He was 
conscious only of his predicament. His hands were 
above his head. He knew that they should not be 
above his head, but he could not pull them down. 
His head was back, and the water was solid upon his 


206 


HAMMER MARKS 


eyes. The water was brilliantly clear and blindingly 
green. He felt the press of it as if he were a bubble in 
cooling glass, a bubble constrained yet struggling for 
release. He could see his forearms and the pads of his 
fingers, corpse white, preserved in the greenness which 
shone. 

He had no thought. He felt. He knew the curse 
of eternity in agelong waiting while he was about to 
rise. He was rising. He left the floor. If time had 
stood still before, it now retraced its passage through 
all of eternity that had been. The moments age by 
age increased, and brought him to the surface again. 

The fight intensified to whiteness—fight which 
blasted sight to keener vision, with its intenser bright¬ 
ness, its intense clarity. In his ears rang the ringing of 
many and many tiny bells, not one of which could 
have been bigger than a seed. The pressure of solidity 
about his body gave way to a thinness, to nothing. He 
could bear the fight; he could bear the ringing ; he 
could bear the glorious gladness somewhere in the middle 
of himself. Time he had no need to bear ; eternity 
was ended ; he had lost consciousness. 

He knew perfectly well what it was like to die by 
drowning ; for him it was the curse of empty eternities. 

It had been slow work, bringing him back to fife. 
His mishap had not been discovered until he had lain in 
the water some little while. It was very strange yet 
ordinary to revive. He had said, “ Where am I ? ” 
And, as he had said it, thought, “ People say that 
when they have fainted ; I must have fainted.” At 
first he did not recognise the baths, nor his swarthy 
friend, who was jerking his arms and perspiring freely. 
They refused to let him enter the water again to regain 
his nerve, and he had not swum since. Yet he knew 
he would not be able to drown here by the quay. 

He knew that as soon as he was in the water all his 
fighting instincts would rouse, and he would not m ake 
the mistakes which were disastrous before. If nothing 
else would make him fight, the proximity of that eternity 
of creeping up through glass he was embedded in, a 


BOLSOVER STREET 


207 


million years an inch, would make him fight; would 
make him save himself despite himself. 

Unless, of course, someone should stun him and 
knock him in. There was no hope of it; Limehouse 
and life were cruel in the wrong manner or to the wrong 
people. 


Chapter III 


Arnold walked away from the little quay; the 
love-orphans keeping shop with dirt ; the cold, 
lapping river on which bobbed the scattered reflection 
of the moon, as if an apron full of canary feathers had 
been shaken into the water. He came to the street and 
saw, disappearing into a passage, one of those stealthy 
men who sift from shadow to shadow at night in Lime- 
house, slovenly swift and covetous of silence, as if they 
roll along on rubber balls. 

“ Me, in a month’s time,” he said. 

His interest returned to food, and he made his way 
in search of a cheap eating-house. He came to several 
which were closed. He came to the high wall of the 
docks, and continued beside it until he came to West 
India Dock Road. He crossed to Penny Fields, seeking 
the cheapest shop. He came to several of the Chinese 
houses, with strange lettering characters rubbed off 
from the whitening smeared over the windows—bills 
of fare. No longer did he believe that the meaner the 
shop the cheaper the fare. He passed the majority 
of them, mistrusting their suggestion of Oriental 
stealth. 

At last he turned to one that had an air of some 
frankness. It was bare of furniture. The Chinese 
clerk who was making out his accounts with a penbrush 
waved him vaguely towards the stairs. He reached 
the dining-room, which had been made by taking down 
a dividing wall between two bedrooms without troubling 
to disguise the method. There were in the room long 
trestle tables and wooden benches and an uncarpeted 
floor—all of them things to give back sound from knock 
or footfall; there was a fire to be raked, china to be 
208 


BOLSOVER STREET 


209 


clicked and rattled ; there were also a score of Chinese, 
never still, and with much to say among themselves. 
To Arnold, waiting there for his coffee, it appeared as 
if the world and all that was therein was made of velvet, 
so padded soft was the sound of living. 

A fair-haired English girl came to him. She was of 
middle height and not truly handsome, but she showed 
as a giant beauty compared with the scattering of 
Chinese men. 

“ A cup of coffee, please,” he said. 

“ Anything else ? ” she asked, making afterwards a 
smile without altering her lip curve. She did it by 
bringing two dimples to her cheek. Arnold liked that 
little smile ; he thought it must be very difficult to do 
or very, very easy. It was one of Bennetta’s smiles ; 
the one she used when she was listening and did not 
wish to interrupt with “Yes,” or “No,” or “Of course, 
Mr. Brooke.” 

“ No, thank you,” he replied. He starved, but he 
starved politely. 

The girl did not bring his coffee immediately ; she 
delayed to talk to pattering men upon the stairs. He 
did not fret at waiting ; although he was not near the 
peacock’s feather heart of the room fire he was in the 
raying fringe of its warmth. She set the cup before 
him. He gladdened in the eddying of heat from the 
china as he touched the handle. It had become one of 
his ambitions to eat a meal served upon a table spread 
with a cloth. As he put the pennies on the bare board 
he did not look at the girl, but thought of a table-cloth, 
a starched white cloth with ridges from the folding. 

The girl picked up the coins and deliberately but 
covertly tapped his finger as she did so. Arnold looked 
up. None of the men had their faces towards him, but 
he knew they watched. He was the foreigner in the 
room ; also he was big enough to be in the police force. 

Having drawn his attention, the girl swiftly directed 
her glance above his head to the corner window and 
then deflected it downwards. She picked the money up 
and left him. 

Oh 


210 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ She intimated the front door,” he concluded. 
“ What does she mean ? Get out ? The last thing 
that could be said is that she was provocative ; yet she 
wanted me to understand something. My best course 
will be to appear to suspect nothing. It requires skill, 
not to be too much at ease when one is warned.” 

Nothing happened. He did not leave the restaurant 
until he was quite warmed. The girl did not look at 
him again, but he remembered her directing glance, 
and nerved himself to meet the unknown as he walked 
down the stairs. 

He realised what she had sought to intimate as soon 
as he reached the lower room. Lounging in the shop 
doorway, with his limbs so disposed that it was not 
possible to leave the shop without either touching him 
or requesting him to move, was the chestnut vender. 

“So,” thought Arnold, “ that hulk expects me to 
push past him and give him the opportunity to start 
trouble, when his friends, who are doubtless handy, 
will gather round.” 

With this conviction Arnold walked to the doorway. 
He was joyed that the girl had given him self-possession. 
Before he reached the door the slippered Chinese clerk 
desisted from painting crippled spiders in his ledger and 
spoke to the man, who made passage. 

“ He wishes me no good,” thought Arnold. “ That 
must have been he watching me by the river. Funny ; 
I wanted someone to knock me in just then, and he was 
quite close and willing—but the children were there. 
Are the children there still ? ” 

He left Penny Fields and resolved to return to the 
river, trusting his enemy to follow. He glanced over 
his shoulder, timid lest the man should not be behind. 
The man was walking circumspectly a few yards away. 

The little quay was deserted. The broken ornament 
of the moon, which had become an obsession to Arnold, 
littered the width of the river. At the end of the jetty 
lamps glittered on a boat, but the craft was far enough 
away. Arnold stood passively on the coping, his back 
to the warehouses. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


211 


The ripples were no longer little waves. Seen from 
this position, the mirrored moon was unbroken. It 
folded and spread and folded like an emblem worked 
upon a fluttered flag. 

“ Thank heaven there is nobody to care,” muttered 
Arnold. 

The tortured oval of the moon writhed, fold from 
fold. There was no splash, no gurgle, in the sob of the 
water. 

“ Ah ! ” 

The assailants knew their business. A coat had been 
flung over his head, and he was pulled backwards to the 
ground, not struck into the water. This was not what 
he wanted! They were robbing him. There were 
several hands about him, tearing off his coat, gripping 
him, prodding in his pockets. 

This was not what he wanted ; he wanted the river. 
He began to struggle. The man kneeling on his head 
shifted his knee, and a boot came under it, kicking 
Arnold unconscious. 

As the spirit slowly forces its way back into its 
mortal habitation with return of consciousness, memory 
is the last servant to be quickened. Arnold first had 
knowledge of his existence, then the slow bruise of all 
his soreness and pain. Dark sight was given him ; he 
was pent in by brickwork and rested on a narrow 
ledge. 

He raised an arm to examine his surroundings, and, 
doing so, toppled from the ledge down the short cliff of 
a wall. He struck with a crash upon the pavement. 
He saw that he had been lying on the sill of a warehouse 
doorway. 

The coracle of the moon, floating and bobbing on 
the water, brought memory back. Evidently he had 
been lifted to the sill to escape casual notice. His 
overcoat had been taken, and his waistcoat sewn with 
shillings was gone. There was something the matter 
with his head- Of course, they had kicked him. 

He struggled to his feet, and with accumulated 
misery sought through his pockets to estimate his loss. 



212 HAMMER MARKS 

He discovered a shilling and then a threepenny bit in a 
corner. 

He laughed bitterly, and deliberately went to the 
water’s edge. “ Bitterness ; and the next thing will 
be self-pity,” he said scathingly as he stood on the brink. 
His fingers were fastening his coat. He stopped, 
wrenching at a button, as he asked himself what 
difference it made, buttoned or unbuttoned; if they 
found him clothed or naked, unrecognisable or Arnold 
Brooke. 

He leaned over the edge. Then he laughed more 
wildly than before. The tide was out! Nothing but a 
stretch of mud for him to fall into ! 

“ Slime,” he exclaimed, and added with feeble 
pettishness, “ Everything is against me; the tide’s 
gone out now.” 


Chapter IV 


When Arnold had left the riverside quay and reached 
his hotel he found it shuttered for the night; that was 
his next alarming discovery. He battered at the door. 
Echoes mocked him. 

All said and done,” said Arnold, “ there is some¬ 
thing comic about all this. At this point a policeman 
should walk on and charge me with loitering without 
visible means of support—one of those tight and shiny¬ 
skinned policemen who have to have the buckle-prong 
through the last hole of the belt, or a doughy-fleshed 
one who specialises in drunks.” 

But the policeman whom Arnold met on the corner 
was quite without affront of fat, which gave Arnold 
courage to confide in him. “I am locked out of my 
hotel; what do you advise ? ” 

“ You will have a job to get in anywhere at this time 
of night.” 

“ Well, what I mean,” said Arnold, “ if I am stopped 
once or twice for hanging about, I shall not get into 
trouble with your people for being a vagrant ? ” 

“ Oh, not as it is. Wait a bit. There is a place 
where you might get in. Under ordinary circumstances I 
shouldn’t advise you to try it; still, you might ask 
at ‘ The Sailors’ Rest ’ in Cammomile Street. It’s 
open all night. You can’t expect much for a tanner a 
night, but you will be under cover. That’s Cammomile 
Street, with the pub on the corner.” 

Arnold found that what at first and second sight 
appeared to be a factory was in truth a sailors’ rest. 
It was a flat building with many iron windows, and 
over the arch of the gatelike doors a lamp was fit. 

213 


214 


HAMMER MARKS 


There were three men seated at the table in the 
“ Manager’s Room.” 

“ Can I get a bed here for the night ? 

“ Ar.” 

“ How much ? ” 

(1 ^ tanner ” 

Arnold produced his shilling and secured the change. 
The printed receipt was ornamented with ships at sea, 
Union Jacks, and gripping hands, like a design for a 
tattoo upon a sailor’s chest. The spokesman kicked 
one of his comrades on the ankle and said, Put him 

in No. 14.” , 

The jailer-faced comrade rose, jingled^ his bunch 
of keys, and gruffly said, “ Come on, No. 14.” 

Arnold followed. In the gloomy passage he knocked 
against another late-comer and said he was sorry, at 
which the jailer laughed satirically. They reached a 
big, bare room. Possibly it had once been the principal 
shop in a factory. The walls were of naked brick, and 
showed here and there when a flicker of flame started 
among the glowing embers of a brazier in a cavernous 
recess before which were stretched negroes on narrow 
benches. 

None of the coloured men wore more than trousers, 
the reason being obvious in the shirts and socks which 
dangled, steaming, round the fire. Two only were 
waiting for their whole wardrobe to dry. As Arnold 
crossed to an arch and a flight of stone steps, the negroes 
turned their eyes toward him, so that the whites of then- 
eyes had the sheen of peeled onions. Their movement 
and breathing rippled the gilt of firelight about their 
ebony. The two nearest the fire were like forceful 
living bronzes ; the others, seen completely only when 
the flame leaped, seemed created from the shadows, 
which in turn they made palpitating and human. 

A pencil point of blue flame, burning at the gas-jet 
upon the floor above, showed Arnold the position of 
horse-box No. 14. A long row of doors, close together, 
stretched down one wall; a chair was placed for the 
convenience of the officials or the curious who wished 


BOLSOVER STREET 


215 


to assure themselves of the demeanour of the inmates. 
The sleep-groans made disconcerting cacophony. The 
atmosphere had an odour unlike, in rebuff, anything 
which Arnold had previously encountered. It appalled 
the palate more than the nostrils. Behind one of the 
doors a man was heard to be violently sick ; Arnold 
wondered if this was another white man or only a negro 
who had been drinking too much. 

The guide unlocked the door of No. 14 and went 
away. Arnold found it a narrow compartment, which 
contained a box of drawers and a bed on which had been 
flung a cahier of calico sheets and blankets. Light 
came from the street through the iron-framed window 
Wire netting was stretched across the top of the cubicle. 

“ I ’specs I’s de only white rooster in this yer chick’n 
run. What a bilge ! ” muttered Arnold, feeling if the 
wire netting was stapled down. 

Limp at the wrists from weariness, aching and 
bruised, he sat upon the edge of the bed and made 
feeble attempts to unlace his boots, but sank down to 
the pillow in sleep before he had released the knotting. 

Sleep is the tenderest of all His angels ; but she is 
the one fickle. At times she will not come when 
weariness, or sorrow, or loneliness make plaint for her ; 
seldom she answers when pain calls ; but when these 
weep together she, the whitest-winged, with her fluttering 
stills their poignancy. Sleep came arrestingly to 
Arnold—that dominating sleep which disbands the 
senses. 

He slept like stone. 

Sleep did not restore his soul to his body until the 
coloured men had been awake some time. His upward 
glance showed him that the wire netting was fluffy 
with dust; the pressure of his bruised limbs against 
the bed made waking pain ; he heard the chirrup and 
boom of the negroes, who seemed blithe ; they sang and 
called in high treble and sonorous bass ; for his palate 
and nostrils there was the odour which was now cold 
and clammy. So were his five senses annoyed on waking. 

He lurched off the bed and made his toilet by shaking 


216 


HAMMER MARKS 


himself. He went outside his door among the merry 
niggers. Their conversations started in enterprising 
little bursts and ended in verbal giggles. Each one 
excited his limbs to enforce his speech, as if gesture 
supplied adjectives, and facial contortions were adverbs 
in a limited vocabulary. Rather than gestures they 
were antics. “ If a pug had the agility of a whippet, 
so might he scratch his ear,” thought Arnold, watching 
them at the washing basins. 

He altered his mind about washing there. He 
fancied the water was tainted ; he knew the towel 
reeked. He was curious as to the daylight appearance 
of the barn where the shirts had been drying. It 
was transformed to a dining-sitting-sprawling room. 
Trestled tables were about between the benches; 
soft-bodied black men sat mouthing their food; a 
glazed partition enclosed a space where meals were 
prepared and served in slabs. One man had bread and 
dripping coated with mustard, but most were eating 
thick rashers of tallowy bacon, finding satisfaction in 
feeling it stretch and catapult between their teeth and 
fingers. And Arnold learned the first of the mysteries 
of hunger—food can disgust a hungry man. 

He solved the money problem of his immediate 
future on the way to his lodgings. Although he could 
not pawn his clothes, he could sell them and his suit¬ 
case, which would no longer be required, to a second¬ 
hand dealer. As he entered the hotel the proprietor 
smiled at him for the first time. Arnold was reminded 
that the bruise on his cheek did not improve his features. 
He went up to his room and made hesitating pro and 
con selection from his clothes. He kept the warmest, 
which were not the newest. The macintosh he possessed 
was but poor substitute for the fleece he had been 
robbed of. 

He felt a little press of alarm as he recognised what 
before he had not noticed—the macintosh was of the 
same colour as that worn by the red-haired man. “ I’m 
getting superstitious,” he said, and then, snatching up 
the garment, “ What if I am to have his fate ! It is a 


BOLSOVER STREET 


217 


worthy mantle; it is I who am unworthy.” He 
shivered and threw the coat on to the bed. “ Macintosh 
always does feel cold to the touch,” he mumbled, as if 
there was need to excuse the shiver. 

He picked up the macintosh again, and slipped his 
arms into the sleeves and buttoned it. He pouched it 
round his breast with a sudden snatch. “ Mm, it is 
getting loose, but not so very loose—not yet. I wonder 
where they buried him ; if he will ever have one pilgrim 
to his pauper shrine. Pauper shrine ! No, it is the 
relics within which make princely or poor shrine. 
What mad ideas ! Of course, he wouldn’t be buried 
at all. Being a pauper and unclaimed, his remains 
would be handed over to the medical students. They’d 
like him ; no messy fat; the young man’s corpse with 
all the advantages of an old one’s. A prophet does not 
respect his own country, but I begin to half admire 
Birmingstow ; she is so thorough when she does deliver 
herself of an artist. I suppose there have been others ; 
I suppose there will be more from her.” 

He passed from speaking his thoughts aloud to the 
second stage of the lonely man’s conversation—speaking 
and answering, answering and questioning again ; the 
stage which is known in Birmingstow as “ talking to the 
devil.” 

“ It is easy for you to grumble and find faults with 
Birmingstow ; being great, she can afford to wear her 
faults outside. There is nothing clever in finding 
fault; find the cure.” Arnold tossed his hand and 
gave the whinnying laugh which was so unlike his 
own. 

He was pacing the room. His voice rose higher as 
he mocked himself. “ Find the cure! The cure ? 
Why should I seek a cure, knowing there is none ? It 
is not my province. Admit I am an expert—but an 
expert in failures. As an expert I diagnose this case. 
Birmingstow nourishes her greatness on the things 
which are poisonous to art, so that when she gives 
birth to an artist her milk cannot help but poison him.” 
He flung his hands joyously forward and laughed and 


218 


HAMMER MARKS 


laughed, but stopped with a jerk of breath. “ An 
expert in failures.” ^ # 

He sat down upon the corner of the bed. “ Failure,” 
he repeated, as he pushed forward his hands along the 
blanket until it was ruckled to the pillow. He sank his 
shoulders to his knuckles and stretched himself upon 
the bed, his head between his clenched hands, and not 
sleep came, but tears. They were but the tears of 
exhaustion. 

He wept until at length he knew that he was weeping, 
and until thought paced quietly with his sobs, so that he 
realised that it was best for him to submit freely to the 
merciful emotion and not check it. His abandonment 
spent itself, and he lay still and calm for a space, telling 
himself that even if he was becoming insane, passionate 
self-analysis would only hasten the climax. He would 
try never to think about himself again. 

He did not understand that his emotional outbreak 
was only hysteria, and not insanity taking away the 
first scoop of beautiful brain. When he rose from 
the bed he shivered again at the cold touch of the 
macintosh. 

His farewell to the proprietor of the paltry hotel 
was brief. “ I don’t owe anything here, do I ? ” he 
said. 

“ No.” 

Arnold took his suit-case and clothes to a Jew who 
dealt in such things. The dealer, after tweaking the 
clothes with his thumb and finger, offered seven-and- 
sixpence for the two suits, the case, and a pair of shoes. 
Arnold asked how much he would give him without 
counting in the shoes. The dealer said, “ Four shillings.” 
“ That will be all right then,” said Arnold. “You give 
me the three-and-six for the shoes and I’ll go on wearing 
the clothes a bit longer.” “ I don’t want the shoes for 
three-and-six. I don’t want any of the things. I offer 
you a good price, but I don’t want them. I offer the 
seven-and-six because you look weak and starving. I 
think you steal the clothes and grow a moustache to 
sell them. You get me into trouble in my shop. Go 


BOLSOVER STREET 


219 


away.” “ Well and good,” said Arnold. “ Give me 
the seven-and-six.” 

Seven shillings and sixpence can make a new world. 
Coming unexpectedly as it did to Arnold, with only the 
ideas, notice, and the preparation for the sale, it had 
all the thrill to be derived from a letter stating that 
Miss Caroline Teston, of Brantwood House, Brantwood, 
co. Sussex, your aunt, died on the sixteenth inst., 
leaving to you the whole of her estate. 

Seven shillings and sixpence can restore youth to 
the world-wizened at twenty-four—almost. Arnold 
gave himself up to the joy of the scrape of his thumbnail 
on the milled edges as he walked, hands in pockets, 
from the shop. He flushed with joy at touch of them ; 
he made little stories about them ; he let fancy languish 
on them. He stiffened with fear at touch of them, and 
took them out one by one and bit the Jew’s coin. He 
jingled them in his pocket before a jeweller’s shop. 
He felt frantically round the seams, fearing a hole in 
the lining. He counted, miscounted, and miscounted 
them again, by letting them squeeze from his palm, one 
at a time, to the point of his pocket. He was sinfully 
and feverishly exalted when he counted one too many ; 
was aghast when he counted one too few ; was philo¬ 
sophic when he counted them correctly—seven shillings 
and sixpence ; youth’s ransom. 

He bought his loaf of bread early, and treated himself 
to a loop of pig’s pudding (black pudding he believed 
to be the more stylish name for it). It was made from 
fat and pig’s blood, groats, rice, and garlic packed tight 
in a brittle sausage skin, which cracked rather than 
ripped. He ate it seated in the churchyard and read 
the names of the happy dead whom now he did not 
envy. It was good to think that he was going to give 
starvation a run for its money. He put his hand in his 
pocket and splashed the coins about his fingers up to the 
knuckles ; he felt excited by his prospects, but he 
wished the weather was not quite so chilly. 

He went into the High Street and began walking 
briskly, that he might have his blisters at a disadvantage 


220 


HAMMER MARKS 


by being at his journey’s end when they grew insufferable. 
He would get into a locality where he could rent an 
empty room ; that would be shelter of the cheaper 
kind. 

He fancied that people looked intently at him as 
he approached or passed them. Possibly it was because 
of the bruise. A girl in sleek furs, who had glanced 
as she passed in front of him, turned deliberately and 
looked at his face. Her face was powdered white ; 
her lips were like blood on a hem of linen. Despite 
this day make-up of a harlot, her gaze was dispassionate. 
A nun-faced woman in mourning held his glance for a 
moment, then let it go. 

“ It seems to be my eyes they look at,” he thought. 
“ In this city of weird and peculiar people, is there 
something specially peculiar about me, or am I grown 
self-conscious because there is only me in all the world 
for me to think about ? ” 

He crossed the road to where a mirror held principal 
place in a hairdresser’s window. He examined his 
reflection critically. “ I can’t see anything wrong,” he 
muttered. “ My eyes are rather greener than usual, 
but that’s only because I am excited. It isn’t my eyes, 
and I am not funny elsewhere. Is it- Ah ! ” 

He started as he saw the rare attraction which 
arrested. On either of his cheek-blades a vivid flash 
of blush had suddenly come and suddenly gone. “ My 
God ! How did I do that ? ” He stood in the middle 
of the pavement ignoring wayfarers. He tried to repeat 
the magical conjuring of his blood, but remained plaster 
white. Yet it happened again as he turned away, and 
was gone as he turned back to detect it. 

“ It’s a trick of my brain. It’s full of tricks. Soon 
I shall begin to believe that the soul of the red-haired 
man has stolen my body to live in again, or I shall begin 
to think that I really am mad. The white macintosh, 
my face thin above it, and now this lightning blush of 
his ! How he fell crash on that marble floor. I have 
never fainted yet; I wonder if that was his first time. 
Did I do right in burning those last relics of his work ? 



BOLSOVER STREET 


221 


He might have thought them of no account, hut- 

Yes ! Always yes ! I did right; she is unworthy. 
Why should I whet my sorrow on such a theme ? ” 

The discovery of this strange peculiarity quickened 
his alert dread of becoming a familiar figure in any 
locality. Having himself been intrigued by the same 
rare flickering of flame on the cheeks of the red-haired 
man, he knew the fascination of watching for it to glow 
or die again once it had been noticed. His sensitiveness 
could not brook that where he went he was familiarly 
known and scorned. He felt that there was laid on him 
the curse of the Wandering Jew without his having 
committed such sin. His quickened dread sent him as 
far from Limehouse and Whitechapel as his staying 
powers permitted. 

Long after he was sick—tired, and footsore to rawness 
he came to Bolsover Street, which runs parallel with 
Great Portland Street. In one of the windows he saw a 
notice scrawled on the back of a cigarette box lid : 

A ROom to let. 

As he knocked at the door he wondered if it was a man 
or a woman who had not had the pertinacity to carry 
out the first intention of capitals to the end of the fine. 
The knocker in his hand was polished, but the brass 
ornament it struck on had not been cleaned. The 
glass of the fanlight had been wiped as high as a man 
could reach from the step. Arnold concluded that 
quite a fair stretch of the road to hell had been paved 
by the person whom he was about to see. 

The door was opened by a woman. Beyond a cobweb 
line between her cleanish face and quite dirty neck 
there was nothing to connect her with the “ A ROom 
to let ” lady. 

“ I saw your notice in the window. What is the rent 
of the room ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ Half a crown a week in advance.” Her speech 
was marked with a diminuendo and ritenuto, beginning 
with verve and finishing on the verge of dolour. “ There 



222 


HAMMER MARKS 


are people like that,” thought Arnold. “ I suppose her 
life’s story is the same ; romance sliding down to 
indifference. 

“ Can I see it ? ” he asked. 

“ Yes,” she said, and then, as he was about to take 
his hat off to enter, she added : “ It isn’t in here. It s 
in another house down the street. Could you come in 
the morning ? It’s cold out, and I should have to come 
with you.” 

“ I’d rather fix up from to-night.” 

“ You can’t; it hasn’t been cleaned out yet. I’ve 
meant to do it all day, but I shall get time to-morrow.” 

“ I’ll clean it, if you’ll let me have the key to look 
at it.” 

“ I always do clean the rooms out when they are 
empty, but—if you leave me three and six, that’ll be 
the rent and a shilling on the key—I’ll give you the key 
of the front door, and you need not bring it back if the 
room suits, as I am busy cleaning. It’s the third house 
from here—that’s it. The room at the bottom of the 
stairs—like that might be.” 

Arnold made the transaction. “ Shall I have a 
receipt ? ” he asked, as he took the key. 

“ You’ve got the key ; that’s a receipt,” she said 
drearily. 

“ Of course it is,” said Arnold, trying to work out 
how it was so as he walked to the house she had pointed 
out. “ Oh, that Crossing-the-Bar voice of hers seems 
the voice of Bolsover Street. Tell me, what gentlemen 
and ladies lived in this street when it was young ? ” 

He put the key in the lock of the door of the high, 
flat-fronted house. He stood upon the doorstep for a 
few minutes and gazed to where Regent’s Park was 
hidden. The phoenix sunset spread out its wings, 
wildly fanning the flames to a flare in its extinction. 
The flare died down to the glow of red embers—the 
embers to grey ash. He pulled the key from the door 
and leaned against the area railings for nearly a quarter 
of an hour, resting, watching the phcenix-dust blow 
about the sky in stars. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


223 


“ To-morrow,” he said, “ it will all be spread out 
again on the other side, and the brown dawn will rise 
from it: phoenix-dust ! ” He raised his hand to his face, 
touching with thumb and second finger the sudden 
burning pulse on his cheek-blades. 

The lamplighters dallied with their twinkling charges 
elsewhere ; the street was dark. Window-sashes in 
flats were raised boldly, and parcels of sweepings and 
kitchen garbage were flung into the roadway. The 
paper of one burst open on the kerb near Arnold, and a 
jagged fruit-tin hopped from it with the stage effect of 
Harlequin springing, pirouetting, from a property 
pannier. Arnold had liked the street a few minutes 
ear her, when the sunset had ransomed it from modernity 
by flinging gold down to the steps of its old-time door¬ 
ways. Now, in the gloom, he not so much liked it as 
turned to it thankfully as a place of refuge. 

He entered the house and closed the door. He felt 
his way along a narrow passage and down the stairs to 
the basement, until he fingered the door which he sought. 
The back room was to be his. “ Mine,” he said, as he 
pushed open the door and stood within, “ mine to live 
in; to- No: live in.” 

He struck a match and saw a bag of straw, a bottled- 
beer box, a rag of some material at the window, bottles, 
and in one bottle a stump of candle. 

“ Furnished ! ” 

He lit the candlo end. The room was small. In one 
corner was a hearth without a firegrate ; charred sticks 
were on it. The side where he had entered was formed 
by a partition of bare boards to divide it from the stair¬ 
case. The rag which was fastened to the window had 
been an underskirt, but was made to serve as a blind by 
being slit down at the side ; it was of linen, with three 
flounces of shot silk sewn on. The sack, choked with 
straw, had served as a bed. “ Home ! ” said Arnold, 
sitting down on the box. The door was kicked open, 
and a thin, harsh-faced woman entered and leered at him. 

“ Her’s soon let it,” said the woman. 

“ When did the other party go out ? ” asked Arnold. 



224 HAMMER MARKS 

“ Her died larst night; but her went from here last 
week.” 

“ Indeed ? What did she die of ? 

“ Her was a tart.” 

“Oh!” . i . 

“ Yes,” said the woman. She pointed to the sacking. 

“ You’ll burn that rubbish pretty quick ? ” 

“ Who looked after her when she was bad? asked 
Arnold. “You?” 

“ Me! ” gasped the woman, writhing her meagre 
frame in disgust. “ What do you take me for ? Her 
didn’t see much of me, nor you won’t neither. She 
went, slamming the door. 

Arnold unfastened his boots; he pushed the box 
against the door as the candle spluttered and expired. 
He went towards the sack in the dark. 

“ I should think it’s a fairly quick way, even if it is 
terrible 

He was about to drop upon the straw, but he paused. 
Then he went to the corner by the window and lay upon 
the boards with his cheek on his arm, and sleep kissed 
him. 


Chapter V 


Arnold must have lived beyond his means during his 
first week in Bolsover Street, for when, on the second 
Monday, again he had paid the rent of his room, he had 
but sixpence left in his pocket. 

Yet he could not recall but one glaring instance of 
waste. That had been when, longing to rest in his 
room, he had boarded a bus and asked the conductor, 
“ Where can I go for a penny? ” “To the Ritz,” the 
conductor had replied. He could not think of any other 
money he had wasted. 

He went over his expenses of the last week to find 
the leakage as he walked from his landlady’s door to 
Marylebone Town Hall. That was his first place of 
call each morning, as the “ Situations Vacant ” advertise¬ 
ments from various newspapers were fastened to 
boards on the railings there. He was disconsolate. 
Even the sixpence in his pocket did not arrest his 
trepidation. 

He had seven shillings and sixpence the week before. 
Three and six for the key and rent; two and six again 
for the rent, and sixpence in his pocket, was six and 
six ; how had he frittered away the other shilling ? 
He put the question jocularly to try and cheer himself 
up a bit: but he replied to it seriously enough. 

Monday he bought bread and black pudding ; but 
that came out of the coppers left in his pocket. Tuesday 
he had found that shop where were sold four commod¬ 
ities and nothing else—stewed eels, soup, mashed potatoes 
and meat pies. What funny things to run a shop on ! 
The shop was like a schoolroom, with wooden forms and 
a counter resembling a desk, and the woman who served 
was not unlike a school-mistress keeping her class in 
PH 225 


226 


HAMMER MARKS 


order. Arnold had a penny basin of soup, and found a 
piece of meat and a slice of nourishing eel in it. The 
man to the right had mashed potatoes, which he flooded 
with vinegar. The man to his left had a meat pie, 
potatoes, and soup, and altogether must have spent 
nearly sixpence on the one meal. Well, that was one 
penny. The same day he had been on the bus ; another 
penny ; making twopence ; leaving tenpence. 

Wednesday ? What happened Wednesday ? Which 
was Wednesday ? Was it Wednesday he went without 
or Thursday ? No, it was Wednesday ; he remembered 
it because he had been shy about having a tip for minding 
a car. The man pulled up to the kerb and looked round 
for the men who touted for car-minding. Arnold at 
that moment paused at the spot, undecided which way 
to go next. He said, “ I’ll keep an eye on it for you , 
I am having to hang about here for a while. The man 
accepted the rather oflhand offer, and when he returned 
put bis hand in his pocket and coins chinked. Arnold 
started, and felt himself blush. He had always been 
absurd about tips. When, as foreman of a job, he had 
been given money, he had always divided it between the 
men. But now he started with eagerness and at the 
prospect of dinner ; whatever was given him should go 
to one meal—a feast provided by the gods. The man 
noticed the blush, and with his other hand drew out his 
cigarette-case and offered it. “ I am obliged, sir. ^ Can 
I drive you anywhere towards the city? ” “No, 
thank you,” said Arnold, taking a cigarette. Arnold 
had boiled the cigarette in water and drunk the brew, 
so that he should be sick and not desire food. Wednes¬ 
day ; still temperance. Er—tenpence, that was. 

Thursday he bought a loaf and some cheese. He 
forgot what these had cost. 

Friday? Friday he had invented his fit-all belt. 
He took a piece of wire, and, after puffing it round his 
waist, twisted the two ends together, so that an extra 
twist would tighten the belt at any time. It was a nice 
question at first which was the least desirable the 
new pain from without or the old persistent pangs from 


BOLSOVER STREET 


227 


within. Anyway, it was better than the cigarette 
water. Friday ; no expenses. 

Saturday, half a loaf. 

Sunday, half a loaf. 

“ Of course ! I bought some soap at the beginning 
of the week. Fool, not to think of it at first, when you 
know all the time that you want blacking for your boots. 
You can’t go on turning over the old polish for ever and 
ever. What the hell’s the good of going to Marylebone 
Town Hall again ? No jobs in your own trade ! Dozens 
of qualified applicants for every advert. Every call 
miles apart. If you start after them again they’ll only 
leave you somewhere like they left you on Friday. My 
God, what a journey ! When I die they will find written 
on my heart, ‘ Eltham.’ 

“ Surely, I am some good to somebody. Why 
4 surely ’ ? A man who can paint a- Oh, well 1 ” 

He flung round in his step and entered Regent’s Park. 
The purple, yellow, and white flamelets of crocuses 
swayed on black earth and green sod as if they flickered 
through from a buried fire. A scampering squirrel sprang 
in curves along the path toward him, and, bounding up 
his coat, thrust his nose into one of his pockets, pushing 
his hand away to explore. Then it raced over his 
shoulder to the other pocket, and was convinced with 
one dip of his nose. “ Sorry, old son,” said Arnold. 
“ If I’d a crumb or a crust you should have it, for you 
are the first living thing to do that for ages—touch my 
hand.” But the coil of fur and rollicking tail was 
pouncing up the side of a tree ten feet away. “ Come, 
Click-click, come here, London’s little lover.” The 
squirrel hung backwards and did something with its 
paw upon its nose so funnily that Arnold laughed. 

The squirrel raced back and began to dig rapidly in 
the turf beside the path, but it ignored Arnold, as if he 
were but a tree without nuts or shelter comfort. “ Come, 
Click-click,” entreated Arnold encouragingly. “ Very 
well, enjoy yourself in your own old way. I know 
what’s the matter with me that makes me friend-proof ; 
long face, uncongenial companion, gloomy Hamlet- 




228 


HAMMER MARKS 


Click-click, you bounder, don’t dig up those crocuses, 
they look like an outcrop of gold. Click, come and 
put your muzzle in my hand again. Ah well, let us be 
cheerful, nuts or no.” He began to hum the tune of i 

What kind of plaint have I, 

Who perish in July? 

I might have had to die. 

Perchance in June. 


“ What has become of your beggar’s philosophy 
now?” he suddenly exclaimed. “Went with your 
ideals when you burnt your pictures, did it? They 
were nothing special ‘ you’d have done better to stick 
to still life—two apples, a shell, and a banana. They 
were no good; waste of paint and canvas. Your’e 
a liar l ” 

A nursemaid near him grabbed at her young charges 
and pushed them hurriedly past him. He glanced at 
her scornfully, but did not lower his voice. 

“ When you burnt your pictures you must have burnt 
your philosophy. Must ha’ done. Funny ; that sounds 
like ‘ mustard on.’” He giggled, and, stooping to the 
path, he prised up a stone and put it in his pocket for 
no reason. “ Must have done ; if you’d been struggling, 
starving, and bearing for the sake of art you would have 
believed it worth the payment; every farthing, every 
hour, every turn of the heart-screw. You would have 
said, 4 Some day I shall be great; the touch of the laurel 
will be antidote for the poison of youth.’ Your 
philosophy would have served and saved you. Let it 
serve and save you without art. I can’t. When I des¬ 
troyed art, I destroyed the core of me. I have now no 
ambition, no hopes ; I have only courage. I will not 
help death ; but I will not hinder it. I will not help 
madness ; but I will not avoid it. If I do want to talk 
in the street I shall. If I want to shout—no, I shall not 
shout again, or they will put me away and feed me, and I 
shall live, and they will give me paints to play with to 
keep me quiet. They will not be real paints and brushes ; 


BOLSOVER STREET 


229 


they will be tins of water and a feather, and—I—shall— 
not—know ! Ah, ah ! I shall offer my pictures to the 
man with the string of cockles round his hat who is a 
king, and I shall not know that I am mad. I shall not 
shout again. That is a thing to guard against; it makes 
starvation to the end seem a little thing beside food in 
plenty and devastation of the brain. When every dread 
that I could think of has come upon me, and I have 
looked at it dispassionately, comes this .” 

He unfastened the collar of his macintosh, which hid 
soiled linen, and passed his hand across his forehead, 
which was damp with perspiration. 

“ I am warm now. I suppose it is the spring getting 
ready to come. The crocus points are like camel-hair 
brushes dipped in blue and green and white and chrome. 
What should I paint with them if I might ? I should 
use board tinted like the sky is now. First I would 
draw with the pine needles. I would paint a picture 
of my mother. 

“ They might hang it in the Birmingstow Art Gallery. 
They might give a dinner in my honour, the Art Societies 
of Birmingstow, and as I drank answer to the toast I 
should know that the touch of laurel is antidote for the 
cup which is now unto my hand.” Looking among the 
naked trees he visualised the scene. “ I shall say that 
I am proud to be a citizen of no mean city ; that whatever 
success has come to me I owe it to my native town. 
She encourages the struggling artist; she cherishes him 
that he goes not elsewhere, that he may stay and learn 
the beauty that lies beneath a grim and grimed exterior, 
to give it back to her in beautiful miniatures, that the 
world may see her as her lover sees her. 

“ I shall say—just before I drink their health in 
compliment return—that I am made strong for art by 
notice from the local Press ; that what has touched my 
heart most gravely was a notice in the Birmingstow 

Daily Mail, 1 This picture of the pathetic mother -* 

Bah ! I know that if I ever sipped their wine ’twould 
taste like cigarette-water ; that I should know that all 
the laurel-leaves upon the tree of fame are not worth 



230 


HAMMER MARKS 


a twisted wire. There is not a decoration made 
in Birmingstow worth picking out of Newn Street 
gutter.” 

He flinched as a hand fell upon his shoulder. He 
realised that he was shouting. He twisted round and 
faced a uniformed park attendant. “ What is it— 
sunstroke ? ” asked the official. 

“ Was I making a fool of myself ? ” asked Arnold. 
“ I’m in for some theatricals, and I was rehearsing. 
I thought the park was quiet, nobody about, and I got 
carried away. I hope I have not been a nuisance. 

“ What company do you belong to with a moustache ? ” 
asked the man dubiously. 

“ Oh, it’s amateur theatricals,” said Arnold hastily. 
" Thanks for pulling me up. I’ll finish rehearsal in my 
digs. Thanks.” He backed away as he spoke, and 
hurried into Marylebone Road. 

“I’ve got to be careful. I’ve got to be careful,” 
he kept repeating when he had shut himself in his 
room. 

He was glad to have the shelter and haven of the 
shut room. He had great affection for it. It was bare, 
but it was now clean. It was lonely ; that was its great 
quality. He could fly to it with rabid eagerness and 
fling off his domino of indifference as the door closed. 
He could laugh at fate and life without anyone suspect¬ 
ing or caring what the jest was ; could roll on the floor 
and toss the straw into a summer haycock without 
fearing a hand at the latch. When it rained he could 
stand at the window, tracing the trickles on the pane 
with his finger ; or if he came in wet he could burn his 
bed of straw and dry himself with his clothes around 
him, then sleep upon the floor for the night, and beg 
another bed and bits of wood from the packers at the 
warehouses on the morrow. Yes, he loved the room 
now that the bugs did not drop from the ceiling. 

The walls were stripped and limewashed ; even the 
door and partition were limewashed. His straw was 
piled in the middle of the floor ready for him to creep 
into at any time. Upon the hearth was his collection 


BOLSOVER STREET 


231 


of jars and tins collected from the parcels thrown 
through the windows at dusk. His box cupboard-table- 
chair was there to hold his loaf—when he should buy it. 
And the door shut out the world. 

Never did he feel that he was alone when in this 
room ; always there was with him here a comforting 
presence to whom he talked, to whom he prayed each 
night. “ Send me to sleep quickly to-night; send me to 
sleep and let me not wake up again. God, be good to 
me and let me, let me, let me die. Because I am no 
use to myself or anybody here, let me not wake ; it is 
such a little thing to You ; to me it is everything I 
want.” 

Now he leaned panting against the door and repeated, 
“ I’ve got to be careful. I’ve got to be careful.” 
Arrows of rain began to break their seeming shafts on 
the bright shield of his window. “ Perhaps it is as well. 
I cannot go out now, for I cannot spare my bed to make 
a fire again to-night. It is my unlucky day; all the 
cigarette ends in London will he sodden —outside the 
Museum, which is the best place, and the bus stops. 
And someone will be before me in the dry tube stations. 
I ought to be able to sleep ; this fearful gnawing kept 
me awake last night. All the night I long for day to 
come ; all the day I long for night.” 

He knelt on the pallet of straw as Asano kneels on 
the white mat at the end of the first act of The Faithful , 
which had made a strong impression on him when he had 
seen it acted. He lifted a straw across his throat as he 
bowed, and endeavoured to recall John Masefield’s 
fines, which to his way of thinking were the most cleanly 
balanced in the English language : 


Sometimes, in wintry springs. 
Frost, on a midnight breath. 
Comes to the cherry flowers 
And blasts them in their prime ; 
So I, with all my powers 
Unused on men or things, 

Go down the wind to death, 

And know no fruiting-time. 


m 


HAMMER MARKS 


He sank his neck to the straw, the slim, yielding, 
mocking straw, as Asano sinks his throat to the dirk 
as the curtain falls in troubled folds. 

The varnished straw yielded, and he fell prone upon 
the heap of his bed. The rims of his eyes tingled with 
weariness. He made an impotent movement. “ I 
wonder why they don’t put weather-cocks on hayricks 
nowadays like they used to when I was little,” he 
muttered drowsily, and glided to slumber, which merci¬ 
fully relieved him of another day of his youth. 


Chapter VI 


Arnold began to make efforts to obtain work as a 
scene-painter. Although these efforts did not accom¬ 
plish anything, they gave a sufficient fillip to hope to 
keep him gyrating in the theatres. If he did not actually 
gyrate, he felt just as giddy on leaving the exits as if 
he actually had been spun. There was a tantalising 
similarity of procedure at each hall, suggestive of a 
hungry ferret’s running through a deserted burrow in 
which still lingered rabbit scents. The usual procedure 
was for him to be courteously directed from one man 
to another, from him to another, and on in a circle back 
to where he started. Each man was kind, sometimes 
calling him “ old man ” or “ old boy,” with often a hand 
laid on his shoulder while direction was pointed out. 

One instance, being a fair example, suffices. He 
enquired at the stage door of the Royal Theatre. 

The commissionaire sent him to the stage door keeper, 
who was in a little office a few feet away. Here he was 
told that he must ask for Mr. Rondell, the manager, in 
front. He went to the front to the box office and was 
sent to the stalls’ bar. He felt certain of finding the 
manager there. The bar was closed. As each theatre 
had differently constructed entrails, he had lost himself 
up passages several times before reaching the bar, and 
at this stage began to grow giddy. 

Near the bar was a door marked “ Private.” He 
knocked and knocked—there was the clicking of a 
typewriter beyond a door—and knocked. A young 
man answered his assault upon the panel finally, and 
said that all the scenery for A Sugar Plum for Rosie 
was complete, and that Warren and Bell painted for 
them. 


233 


234 


HAMMER MARKS 


Arnold asked for their address. The young man went 
away, and found that it was somewhere at Richmond, 
but found also that it was not they who had painted the 
scenery for A Sugar Plum for Rosie, and anyway he 
knew that they would have nothing. 

“ Well, can I get a job scene-shifting ? ” asked Arnold, 
ignoring the man’s restlessness to be gone. 

“ Oh, you must ask at the stage door about that.” 
He made indirect progress through the catacombs to 
the stage door. The stage door keeper said that he 
must go to the stage carpenter, and allowed him to go 
down a black passage which brought him to a flat 
ceilinged cave, where gilded thrones and dusty gilt cups, 
fruit-coloured shoes of painted temples, blocks of wood, 
and buckets waited to trip an unwary foot. He fumbled 
about in this dimly-lit treasure-house of an Egyptian 
king’s tomb which vandals had violated. He was 
apprehensive of being discovered there and suspected 
of mischief, but he could not find his way out. He felt 
dazed, as if the place were full of fog and the ceiling was 
being gradually lowered upon him. At last, beyond a 
curtain of rag flowers slung over hooks in torn festoons, 
he found a man drinking stout from a bottle. 

The stage hand said the carpenter would not be back 
till about six-thirty. But Arnold did not leave the 
Royal Theatre without hope, for the stage hand had 
offered him a suck from his bottle, and said that he 
believed the Carnival Theatre was putting on a new 
show soon. 

Arnold went to the Carnival Theatre, and, after the 
same spin and roll, found the business manager, who 
was mildly incensed at the suggestion that a new play 
was to be put on. He thought the enquiry carried with 
it a suggestion that his revue, Don't! I have Fits, now 
running was not destined for a long run. Don’t! I have 
Fits was only ten performances old. 

Arnold went to several other theatres before it was 
half-past six, when he found the stage carpenter at the 
Royal Theatre. The stage carpenter did not know 
anything about anything, or what or where or to whom 


BOLSOVER STREET 


235 


Arnold should spply. He was a double blank ; Arnold 
turned him up and left off playing for the night, as the 
performances were commencing. 

He still had the sixpence in his pocket. 

During all the next day he revolved round and through 
the theatres, and only left off when the orchestras were 
tuning up, and the musk of pleasure-feeders charged 
the draught in vestibules and passages with a settled 
flavour of humanity, perfumed in streaks. 

The iced wind fled along the streets of Soho, chasing 
him to his little room, but he could not sleep for his 
fourth day hunger. , _ . 

He rose and lit a little straw in the fireplace. Inen 
he smashed his box and burned it, and, kneeling before 
the flames, unfastened the unendurable wire from round 
his stomach. The agony of release from the grip made 
him swoon, and as he felt premonition of what was 
about to happen to him he staggered back from the fire. 

When he recovered, it was confusing trying to recollect 
where he was. At first he was alarmed. Before him 
were wispy flames and but very little smoke ; in his 
ears was the crackling of twigs and flapping of flames , 
to his nostrils the pungency of fire. A flame licked his 
hand and scorched it. His bed of straw was burning. 

He screwed himself into a corner, his knees tucked 
to his chin. He laughed wildly to see the bits of blaze 
float off and soar about the room. He felt the fiery 
morsels settle on his hair and his hands ; he watched 
their scarlet snowflakes burn out on his clothing ; and 
he laughed with hysterical pleasure. 

The straw burnt out upon the boards. He crawled 
on to the warm, black bed of it and stretched himself 
out and prayed more fervently than ever before, that 
he might sleep, and in his sleep die. 

He wondered how long it took for a man to die of 
starvation, taking into account several previous weeks 
of semi-starvation. He remembered that a man m 
Birmingstow had been on exhibition for weeks and 
weeks, charging a penny to be looked at, while he went 
without food. He wondered if it would end for him 


236 


HAMMER MARKS 


before his rent was due again, and he returned to his 
desperate demand to die—or even to sleep for a little 
while. 

He did not sleep. He stripped himself and laid 
himself out, his hands crossed on his breast, so that 
when they found him they would not have to break 
any of his limbs to get him into a coffin. Whatever the 
current of his thoughts, he kept the line of his mouth 
tranquil, lest anyone from Birmingstow should be 
needed to see and identify him. He tried to keep his 
eyes closed and not look at the blackened ceiling ; he 
was afraid of what his dead eyes would tell. But he 
did not sleep. He did not die. 

The dawn began to break. Up the gully of the house 
walls, from where he lay he could see the sky like a 
flock of peacocks. The blue and purple sheen of plum¬ 
age was trailed among the surface sweep of folded wings. 
A white peacock spread wide the shining silver screen 
of its tail; spread it, and kept it tremulous, as if he 
wooed ; as if he arched it over to cover his little earth- 
brown mate with his shining beauty. Now there was 
nothing but white in the sky ; above the horizon, which 
Arnold could not see, the pale sun must have shown its 
rim. 

“ Another day,” whispered Arnold. “ O God, 
pitiless God, another day ! ” 

Stiff and almost frozen, he rose. He had a make¬ 
shift bath and shaved himself. Then he dressed. 
Gradually he began to realise that he was not acutely 
hungry; that he had “ got his second wind.” As in 
swimming, when a man has surpassed endeavour he 
feels that he can go on for ever, so now Arnold felt that 
the dulled ache in his stomach could be borne with 
fortitude but without anguish. It was wonderful to 
realise it. He felt weak, but he felt no torment. He 
felt that he could go on until the end—so long as he 
touched no food which would break his peace of fast. 

Arnold knew that the greatest help to speed a day 
was given by having an object—something to do, some¬ 
where to go. It mattered not much if there was no 


BOLSOVER STREET 


237 


hope at the end of the journey ; it wore the hours away ; 
and then there was the covert shelter of his room to call 
him back again with hope of exhaustion and sleep. 
He dismissed the idea of trying the theatres again. 
Chelsea sounded alluring. 

He did not know where or how far off Chelsea lay, but 
he asked his way and asked his way until he found some¬ 
one who knew the direction other than by taking a bus. 

Chelsea bewildered him ; it really is not a place to be 
explored on an empty stomach. He had been in Chelsea 
some time before he realised that he actually was in 
Artists’ Land. He had stopped in his slow walk to ask 
a window-cleaner if he was on the right road for Chelsea, 
and if it was much farther. 

“ You are in Chelsea,” said the man. “ Which part 
do you want ? ” 

Arnold’s thoughts came slow that morning. He 
looked at the man stupefied, as if it were the moon 
which he had asked for, and the man had taken up a 
fork and said, “Which part do you want? Should 
you like a bit off the breast ? ” He had pictured Chelsea 
as a patch of quaint song in London’s prose of brickery. 
He had been prepared for Belgian laurels in flame- 
coloured tubs at doors which were stencilled with dragons 
and fruit-trees. Chelsea, where the artists live, was a 
legend of his beliefs. Chelsea as he had imagined it 
was a theatre where the actors were artists ; the comedy 
was Life ; the scenes and properties would be duly in 
keeping. Chelsea, as he had thought it, was where the 
priests of the temple of art had their offices, which, as 
such, would show something of the glamour of their 
goddess. He had expected something as strange as a 
picking of gilt-on-silver pears in a basket of plaited 
sleigh-bell ribbons, and now here was nothing other than 
London shops and London houses. The men, as else¬ 
where, looked like warehouse clerks ; the girls, as in 
the other suburbs, were like saucy-lipped milliners. 
Arnold felt aggrieved ; Chelsea was not Chelsea. 

“ I want where the artists are,” said Arnold. “ Where 
does Chelsea begin and where does it end ? ” 


238 


HAMMER MARKS 


“It begins where it ends—in Bedlam,” said the 
window-cleaner, with the stale grin of the man who 
drives a stock joke forth once more. 

“ Thank you,” said Arnold politely, and turned from 
the shoppng thoroughfare down a road of private 
houses. 

He was crossing a by-road when the thing happened. 
He turned round swiftly, as if a hand had clutched his 
shoulder and jerked him round. Somewhere near 
very near—him was hot coffee ; the hot fragrance went 
straight to his nostrils and entered his brain. He drew 
in his breath with a suddenness which made him aware 
of his jaw squaring in its socket. His intentness was 
unrewarded; he saw nothing but a glaze of light 
although he had turned a spoon-shaped weather-vane 
whirled in his dizzy brain ; the second wind of his 
fasting was broken! 

He found that he was swaying when his sight became 
steady. Men were digging up the roadway, and a 
labourer was preparing cans of tea for their dinners. 
On a pile of rubble at Arnold’s feet a can of coffee sent 
steam into the cold air. Arnold swayed, devouring the 
perfume with his brain. It maddened him as alcohol. 
He wanted to snatch it up, scalding still, and drink, or 
to kick it as far as he could and strike the can-boiler 
with one of the granite sets. 

Once a hospital porter had told him that he never 
saw a new-born baby but he wanted with savage impulse 
to thrust his finger down through the hole where a 
thin skin palpitated on the child’s cranium. Arnold’s 
madness of the moment was like that—brain-lust. 
Yet he was powerless. He swayed above the coffee 
while it cooled, and he felt life wring the remnant of his 
youth from him. 

A hand came and threaded the can, with others, on a 
stick and carried them away. 

“ I have some money—sixpence—in my pocket,” 
said Arnold. “ Where is a shop ? ” 

He started with uncertain steps in the direction he 
had been walking. He came to the embankment and 


BOLSOVER STREET 


239 


no shops. He walked along it to the next road, and, 
turning along it, began to look for one of the little eating- 
houses which he thought were peppered over every part 
of inner London. He found none as he crotcheted his 
way to and fro and along the miles of respectable houses, 
and came out at last at King Street, where the shops were 
prosperous and expensive. He wanted something rich 
with warm gravy and softly firm with vegetables. The 
coffee had not made him want coffee ; it had painted a 
picture of a hot meal. He knew precisely which of the 
sixpenny dinners he wanted—the shredded beef in a 
hash of vegetables. 

There were confectioners’ shops in King Street, and 
in their windows were sugar cakes with silver balls and 
crystallised violets upon them, pastel coloured fancies 
in pink and lavender and orange cream, with wavy 
lines of chocolate and icing about them. He thought 
what fools there lived to buy such things, buying butter¬ 
flies at the price of horses. 

There were shops with velvet peaches ; top-knotted 
and brittle pineapples ; globes of sunshine from Spain ; 
blue, green, white, yellow, and purple grapes swinging 
in chains of smilax. It seemed to Arnold that God 
must have made them solely for their beauty, and not 
as food, that man might tot up profits in a ledger. 

There were stores in which were treasures of the 
palate in jars and tins and frilled boxes ; spiced and 
flavoured temptations for the gourmand. <£ Apparently 
living is one of the arts also,” said Arnold. 

“ Apparently it is,” he repeated, passing an hotel 
portal where violins were laughing to the diners. “ And 
in that art also I am a failure.” 

The hotel decided him to leave mocking King Street 
and cut straight down to the embankment and follow 
it till he came to some workmen’s dining-rooms. The 
embankment mocked him, though not as King Street 
had done ; here there was desert and there was harvest. 
There was no shop so far as he could see. He walked 
on and on, pricked along by misery. 

The changeful facade of house-fronts forced itself 


240 


HAMMER MARKS 


upon his notice intermittently. li I think this place 
would please me,” he said. “ When I have eaten I will 
come back and take it in slowly.” He turned his eyes 
for soothing to the river, where the grey light laved 
along the silken ripples. Nothing could content him 
but food. Before him the embankment was deserted 
as the sea-front of a holiday resort in October. In the 
distance a bath-chair was being wheeled backwards and 
forwards an arm’s-length, suggesting a mother getting 
off to sleep a peevish child in its perambulator ; in 
Arnold’s immediate vicinity a policeman fiddled with 
his gloves ; no one else was to be seen. 

Arnold went to the policeman and asked where 
something to eat was to be obtained. The constable 
motioned over his shoulder with a flick of his gloves. 
Arnold went curiously towards the place indicated and 
looked in at the windows. In the bay of the first window 
was a table covered with a plaid cloth, the tartan being 
of the Cameron clan. A vivid blue plate was on the 
cloth, and on the plate was half a banana. In a black 
bowl was a geranium and two peacock’s feathers, so 
placed that the feathers were partly submerged in 
water and the geranium was high and dry on the edge. 
A waitress in an Elizabethan dress was moving pen¬ 
sively and moodily about in the background. Arnold 
felt disturbed. He passed his hand across his eyes and 
looked again. The things were still there, and, more¬ 
over, what he had not noticed before, on a tripod cake- 
stand was a piece of wedding cake and a pyramid of 
sliced carrots—at any rate, they looked like slices of 
carrots. 

He looked above the door for a name. An art sign 
hung out there, stating that the restaurant was The 
Crooked Cat ” or il The Cooked Cat.” He did not 
peruse it minutely, as the action of holding back his head 
made it swim even more than the contents of the window 
had done. 

He shifted to the next window, and began to be 
alarmed for his sanity. Here was not a table, but an 
upturned tub draped over with a hideous tangerine 


BOLSOVER STREET 


241 


cloth. The cloth was laid with an earthenware pitcher 
crammed with dead twigs of oak-tree, a mother-of-pearl 
shell levelled up with raspberry preserve, a green and 
white striped cup in a willow pattern saucer, and a book 
of poems. He touched the window-glass, felt it to be 
solid and slippery, so he backed away to the kerb. A 
girl passed and went into the restaurant. She was next 
seen seated at the window with the tartan table-cloth. 
She gazed at the river with a Whistler-stood-here look. 
Next she took out a little note-book and wrote a little 
line with a little pencil. She put the book away and 
motioned to the Elizabethan waitress that she might 
now be disturbed by attention ; inspiration had had 
its fling. 

Arnold watched agape, wondering what she would 
eat—the carrot shoes, the bit of banana, the piece of 
wedding cake, the geranium, the feathers, or the whole 
lot. She was served with a pot of tea and bread and 
butter. 

“ I must be coming round,” said Arnold, as she began 
to pour plain tea. 

He crossed to the menu in a beadwork frame. One 
item was sufficient: “ Boiled ham and pickled rosebuds 
(pickled crab-apples).” 

“ I spoke too soon,” he said, and went to the next 
shop. 

It was a kind of wooden-china shop ; it exhibited 
hand-painted toilet sets made of wood in freak shapes 
and freakish colour patterns. It showed a wood tea- 
service painted white, and having square dice for handles. 
Arnold could imagine them selling barber’s pole by the 
yard or rocking horse by the pound. 

The next shop must have been run by a combine. 
Outside it several showcases were hung. In one of 
these were examples of glass flowers which could be 
made to match any scheme of decoration ; there was 
no mention of why. In another were displayed poems 
by a young man who undertook to write verses for any¬ 
one and for any occasion at shortest notice, birthdays 
and love-sonnets a speciality. “ Mm! Tennyson’s 

Qh 


242 


HAMMER MARKS 


stuff with the words altered,” said Arnold after reading 
a few lines cut from the “In Memoriam” column of a 
daily paper. In another was arranged a cardboard 
room in apprehensive rather than darmg coiour-scheme 
by the only woman decorator in the world (according t 
her business card). Arnold, whose daily wor . , a 
been similar, regarded the suggested room with amaze¬ 
ment ; it looked to be the kind of thing a child paints 
when the teacher’s back is turned. , . h 

A fat white cat, with a tiny boa of glycermed ostrich 
feather round its neck, waddled down the shop steps and 
chafed its shoulder on Arnold’s ankle. He ^°cP ed ^ d 
touched both cat and boa. Yes they both felt real. 
“ So this is Chelsea,” said Arnold, or—is it another 

stage of being hungry ? ” . . . ,, 

The girl who had been letting her soul rip in the 

restaurant came out and approached him m her walk. 
He bared his head and stood in her path, holding his hat 
as if she were a great lady accustomed to giving a sign 

before men covered again. . , - 

“ Excuse me,” he said.” I am not in the habit of 
speaking to strangers, but could you tell me—er—are 

these—I mean to say-” „ , . _ , . , , . 

The girl drew herself up to the full height of a lady m 

a novelette and regarded him disdainfully. 

He continued with a rush. “—these shops look funny 
to me, as if I am out of sorts a bit. Can you tell me— „ 
“ I noticed you watching me while I was lunching, 
said the girl, with verve and hauteur. “ If you con¬ 
tinue to molest me I shall attract the attention of the 


officer over there.” 

Arnold put on his hat and moved aside so hurriedly 
that a shade of disappointment crossed the girl s 
romantic face. “ Impertinence ! ” she said, combining 
the syllables with fine attention to stress, but he chd 
not revive the episode with apologies or sneers, She 
waited as long as the custom of making promiscuous 
acquaintances commended and then walked on. 

“ Well, that explains it all,” said Arnold to himself. 
“ Doesn’t it! She is just a girl with an afternoon off, 


BOLSOVER STREET 


243 


come from any part but Chelsea, and she’s doing the 
sights here. Carlyle’s house and the rest of the bunch 
must be close handy, and these shops are catering for 
sightseers.” 

With his head upon his breast, forgetful of his quest 
(for the second wind of hunger was returning), he 
dragged his feet along the sunshine-swept way of 
Chelsea shore. His mind was blank. He went as if 
the back of a hand, knuckled in the nape of his neck, 
impelled him forward. He kept his eyes turned to the 
pavement, passing through the Mecca of artists which 
waited with lure and overplus of charmed associations, 
dishevelled colour, and grave, fine contours of brick and 
stone, to win him to worship down its artist’s wonder¬ 
way. His brain was not nourished, and he walked 
untouched by its spell. 

Chelsea Embankment does not always come to an 
end ; since artists have fervour, often it stays in patches 
in the heart. But to Arnold it was without cry, even 
as Newn Street; the soul faints also when the body 
starves. Chelsea Embankment not only came to an 
end for him ; he did not know that he had left it. 

He had forgotten why he had come to Chelsea, if, 
indeed, there had been a reason, and he had forgotten 
his quest of a cheap eating-house. As he left the water¬ 
front he passed one such as he had been seeking. He 
went slowly and lethargically on in the sleep-walk of 
the destitute who do not beg. 

He came to tram-fines in an open space and avoided 
the car which clashed fussily past him. He stopped in 
indecision. Some fluttered thought was beating its 
wings against his mind to be admitted. As he breathed, 
he drew in the vapour of stewing meats in gravy. He 
looked around him, and for a moment did not com¬ 
prehend the place, as a man who has been steadily 
praying opens his eyes and wonders what the cathedral 
means and came to be there. He was at the door 
of a small cook-shop with two steamy windows, and as 
a customer opened the door he was bathed again in its 
fulsome aura. 


244 


HAMMER MARKS 


He was roused. Too much misery ceased to be an 
anodyne. He clipped his fingers on the sixpence in 
his pocket. “ A sixpenny dinner,” he said to the waiting 
woman as he dropped into a seat. Stew. 

Something peculiar was happening to him. He felt 
his entrails revolting at the smell, the suggestion, the 
thought of coming food. The woman put down a soup- 
plate of meat and vegetables protruding from thick 
grey fluid. She picked up the sixpence and pushed to 
him a knife and zincky fork and spoon. 

Something peculiar was happening to him ; he felt 
physical nausea loosening his limbs and relaxing his 
muscles, so that he could not pick up his spoon. Heavy 
perspiration began to trickle from his cheeks. He felt 
that he was going to be violently ill. The good, the whole¬ 
some food seemed a necessity, yet was horrible to him. 

He looked to see if other customers noticed him. 
The man opposite to him was ladling soup greedily. 
Arnold looked away, as a man giddy from riding on a 
roundabout will not gladly look at the roundabout 
where it spins. “It is. the unexpectedness of the 
pleasure which enervates me,” he tried to assure himself, 
but all the time he knew that it was not so. 

“ A very hungry man should drink soup first, he 
said. “I will have the gravy first.” He lifted the 
spoon to his lips, but his palate revolted. He had a 
second tussle between his will and his physical insurrec¬ 
tion. His will won, and he drank the richly flavoured 
soup. 

His courage was fatal. He used up the last fragments 
of his energy in conquering his nausea as he rose and 
went quickly out into the street. He walked down the 
road before him and came to the river. He sat upon a 
low wall and wondered just what the end would be, the 
end which seemed welcomely near. He had strained 
longings to be in his little room with the door closed. 
Bare cell though it was, its sense of haven was inimit¬ 
able. But it was too early to be gone there yet; the 
bell-rope of the day had to glide through his hands a 
long way and time before the sundown tolled. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


245 


He tried to think of something to pique interest. 
Here he was in Artists’ Land, and the princes of his 
own country held state near by. It would be good to 
see them. If he offered himself as a model he might at 
least see one or two of them—see into their ateliers. 
His figure was good enough to make the excuse reason¬ 
able, but he knew that he could not hold a pose for five 
minutes in his present state. At least it was something 
to do, and would kill time ; at best he would see the 
princes, and someone might fancy him for the head, 
or more probably the figure. 

When he was revived by the bleak wind he began with 
the highest, the King of Chelsea. He found the address 
in the telephone directory. Of the first half-dozen 
people whom he asked to direct him only the last had 
heard of Mallord Street, where the artist lived. Beneath 
a ribbed-tile roof was a straight high wall and an arched 
door. There Was no name or notice to indicate what 
lay behind—studio, dwelling, or monastery close. He 
thought it possible that his head might make appeal 
to the fancy of the King of Chelsea, whose renown lay in 
painting the metal of which his subjects were made 
rather than in perpetuating their shape and colour. 
As Arnold lifted his hand to the knocker of eighty-two 
he thought it would be rather inspiriting to look for 
the King of Chelsea’s metal while his Artistic Majesty 
looked for his. The knocker fell without echo. 

A stout woman, not trim, opened the door of the ark, 
or whatever it was eighty-two was meant to suggest. 
She spoke in syncopation, with relative gestures, as if 
impatient to be back at her duty. She said that the 
artist had sufficient models ; he did not want any 
more ; he could get as many as he required, and he got 
them. 

“It is not necessary for him to seek models ? ” 
suggested Arnold, seeing that she could not think of 
another form of putting her statement. 

“ No,” she said. 

Arnold believed she meant “ yes,” but he said, 
“ May I see him ? ” 


246 


HAMMER MARKS 


4 ‘ He is working, and does not allow anyone to disturb 
him when engaged on a big picture.” 

“ When can I see him ? ” „ , 

“ He might see you at ten in the morning. Witn 
fretful fingers she made movements, as if she picked 
shell from a hard-boiled breakfast egg. “ Good after¬ 
noon.” She was very quick to go. 

“ Ah, well, the King is worthy of his guard, concluded 
Arnold.' 44 He never spat upon art by burning his 
pictures ; if my city was not worthy of my work, art 
herself is worth endeavour. I wonder where he was 
born, where he was bred, or what his lessons were. 
He uncovered his head furtively before he left the 

^He was not sure where to look next. He got into the 
proximity of more “ play-pretty ” tea-houses and 
** tarradiddle ” shops. He tried to escape them, only 
to run into others — 44 The Blue Canary” and “The 
Flat-footed Ladies.” Cars stopped before them, and 
silken women rustled up the steps — 4 So quaint, and so 
very Bohemian. I had the wickedest teeny, teeny slice of 
peach cake when I brought Mrs. Flanting-Jesswood. And 
d’ y* know, I really think I could paint if I had a few 
lessons; especially as I have to stay at home rather a 
great deal while Pom-pom-pom has the mange. Clarice 
is sitting with him this afternoon, but I know he will 
fret. Shall you use your new cigarette holder ? I——” 
“ Ough l ” groaned Arnold, and crossed to a side- 
street, where the neighbourhood was more serious and 
saner.' He came later to the schools and the studios 
near. The first studio that he obtained admission to 
was a sculptor’s. Scaffolding was built round the torso 
of a huge bust. Men stood on ladders and chipped 
lustily, as if they recked not if the statue came out as a 
Venus' or an elephant. The Sculptor was not there 
supervising, but bis assistant told Arnold that he could 
be given an interview on the morrow — 44 if you are 
passing. Unless your figure is exceptional you are not 
likely to be needed, as there is not much work about.” 
Forty yards away stood the studio of the famous 


BOLSOVER STREET 


247 


sculptor, Walter Cate. A young man, smiling to himself 
with gay-lit eyes, was coming from the door. He 
checked his pace but not his smile as Arnold spoke to 
him. “ Go straight in,” he said. Arnold went through 
the gateway in the iron railings, and, after hesitating in 
a little office, reached the big workroom where half-born 
statues struggled from the throttling stone ; some as if 
they agonised in the clamp of the marble, others calm 
and beautiful, as if dream-appointed. A small room was 
beyond. There a man was working on a statuette not 
more than ten inches in height. Arnold did not wish 
to disturb him. He wanted just to stay and look at the 
marble gods and mortals where he was ; which was like 
being within the mind of the great sculptor, privy to the 
half-formed conceptions which stood about in his 
mentality. 

The sculptor glanced up. He frowned at being 
disturbed, and laid down his chisel with a slight 
show of irritation. He had a short grey beard and hair 
powdered like a miller’s. His features were of softened 
ruggedness. 

Mr. Cate lost his slight impatience, and was gentle¬ 
manly considerate when he knew that his disturber was 
unfortunate. “ The touch of the laurel is the test of 
inner greatness,” thought Arnold, as he saw sympathy 
take all the marble from the great sculptor’s face. 

“ I am sorry. There is no work being done in the 
district. What a pity my son is out; he could have told 
you where it would be if there was any at all.” He kept 
his glance on the young man’s eyes and shook his head 
again. “I am sorry,” he repeated, restoring to the 
phrase the meaning which politeness has robbed it 
of. 

Arnold flinched ; kindness was like a stiletto to him, 
so much was it strange. His thanks struggled for 
expression as did the marble-bound busts around, but 
he left the workshop without a word. 

He went into an avenue of studios and began to 
knock upon the doors in routine. At No. 1 and No. 2 
none answered his knock. At No. 3 a bald and well-fed 


248 


HAMMER MARKS 


artist in a braided morning-suit and white spats growled 
“ Nobody’s doing anything.” His studio was richly and 
lavishly furnished; thick carpets made the floor 
marsh-meadow soft; embroidered hangings took the 
light into purple corners by many a green and glowing 
fold ; enormous pictures stood on easels among superb 
furniture, as if a doge of ancient Venice painted in his 
state-room. The artist went back to his disturbed 
afternoon nap. 

No. 5 was a pretty girl in a flowery studio who did 
not use models. No. 8 was a man of forty and assurance 
in a surrounding of new and glistening pictures ; 
apparently he had rented the bare room for an exhibition. 
“ Nobody had anything to do.” 

Arnold left the avenue and found a series of studios 
supplied by a passage with one door, in the post of 
which was a waistcoat button row of bell-pushes. 
He pressed the top bell and waited. Suddenly the door 
opened, and he was dazzled. A grim old woman with a 
mask of paint and powder on her face confronted him. 
She wore a green and flowered silk dress smothered in 
sequins and “ pretties ” and bits of jewellery. She was 
stringed about with yards of varied beads ; she wore 
a toque and a veil and a feather, and looked altogether 
like a decorated Christmas-tree. She startled Arnold 
by saying, “ I am not at home.” 

The door slammed, and he was left staring at the 
vibrating knob. “ I suppose that’s a woman’s way of 
saying, “ Nobody’s doing anything,” he muttered. 
Viciously, one by one, he jabbed at all the bells on the 
post. Then his nerve deserted him, and he ran to the 
corner of the road and walked hurriedly away. 

His pace slackened. It dragged. He went with the 
heavy, painful weariness of a fly from which the wings 
have been torn. He longed for the haven of his little 
whitewashed room. He felt that if the night would only 
fall he could crawl on his hands and knees in the darkness 
of by-roads to Bolsover Street. He went on as a 
nightmare walker. He went on in the curse of a day 
eternal, in the wilfulness of a day which would not close. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


249 


Time had frozen. The world had reversed its spin, and 
he was walking his way against it. 

Seats and doorsteps mocked him, bidding him rest. 
He feared exhaustion in the street, and longed for the 
shut door of his room. When first he came to the wall 
which hides the river he leaned his shoulder to it as he 
went on, and felt glad of it and the lonely, wide road. 

But the wall had no break ; it went on and on. The 
road led nowhere ; it went on and on. They were 
adjuncts to the curse of perpetual daylight. Once, when 
no one was in sight, he leaned his back to the wall, his 
hands stretched out as on a cross. He felt that his legs 
were crumpling up beneath him, that his hands were 
slipping and his shoulders were sliding down the bricks— 
or was the wall gliding upward like a wave to curl over 
him ? The pavement was swaying. Thank God night 
was falling ! The sky was growing dark. No ! It was 
not coming dusk, he was going to faint. Not here ! 
Not here, but in his room ! And now he felt satisfied 
that the end would come before his rent fell due. 

The despair gave him courage, gave him hope, which 
till then had been like a frightened rabbit, peeping at 
intervals of scared necessity from the mouth of its 
burrow to see if it could get, despite the watching fox, 
a little of the green food growing all round. 

He gripped upon the brickwork, he fought back the 
darkness ; he mobilised every red drop of his blood and 
willed it to serve him. He stood away from the brick¬ 
work without falling and faced towards his destination, 
the whitewashed shrine where he could die in peace ; 
without a name, without fearing that a single word or 
accent of his should betray from whence he came or 
what he might have been. 

Oh, the endless wall ever beside him as he staggered 
drunkenly on ! The wall went on, went on ; it seemed 
to encompass the earth. Sometimes it appeared to 
swing past him, as if he went by it on a bumping sledge ; 
sometimes it grew vague and distant even while his 
hands were touching it. Sometimes it ended but only 
for a gateway, and again it went on and on and on- 



250 


HAMMER MARKS 


Bolsover Street! He reached it, and still it was not 
quite dark. He clung to anything which he touched 
during the last weary stages of his journey. He was 
blind with weariness when he touched his door. He 
fumbled with the key and obtained entrance, and 
lowered himself from stair to stair. The door of his 
sanctuary was but a yard from him, and he was reeling. 
For terrible minutes he dared not loose the newel post. 
The door in sight, he could not reach it. He bowed 
about the post, and fought and craved for strength to 
cross the narrow passage. 

The door above slammed ; the woman who was his 
neighbour was coming down the stairs. Despair, his 
master, loosened his finger grip. 

Fool that he was ! He had but to fall toward the door, 
and by his fall he would enter his room. He lurched. 

He was within the room, and the door was closing- 

He raised his hands in thanks to God as he crashed. 



Chapter VII 

“ It was because His mother was deserted by His 
father that Jesus Christ was born in a stable—a love 

Arnold quickened from his lethargy, astounded by 
hearing a voice proclaim this with conviction. He was 
huddled at less than full stature, for warmth among the 
packed crowd who listened, yawning, to the vain 
orators in Hyde Park. A plain-clothes policeman shut 
off the cold on his right side ; a man in a fleecy coat was 
on his left; the people in front were sufficiently tall to 
break the advance of chill; he did not know what manner 
of men were behind, but it did not matter—there was no 
wind from that direction. The group in which he stood 
was round a violent-minded Socialist orator in little, but 
Arnold had not been listening ; he had been watching 
faces as they turned their contours in ennui. 

He had been seeking to discover what these men had 
in common that they should be drawn together, making 
so varied a crowd. Few were interested in Hie speakers , 
most of them were without companions. They were of 
no one grade of society; there were men who were 
possibly beggars, there were men who probably were 
wealthy. They drifted as if they were ever about to 
pause, or paused as if they were ever about to drift 
again. He found what the lure was when he asked what 
had sent himself there on so bitter a night. Loneliness ! 
He had been questing companionship, to be encircled 
by human beings even if they were strangers ; to hear 
a voice which could be taken as addressing him. What 
was said mattered not so long as the speech was directed 

toward him. . , i 

That was the common instinct in all these men tne 


251 


252 


HAMMER MARKS 


effort to turn the head away from inward loneliness. 
The brooding fat man, who looked as if he doted on 
whipped cream—he was lonely. The gloomy, black- 
whiskered man, who looked as if his hobby was cutting 
up dead children—he was lonely. The man with— 
oh, but then, they all were lonely. Among his 
brothers standing there he could feel the imploring 
yearning of their friendlessness. Their very reserve 
was a gesture which betrayed their inducible isolation. 

Arnold looked at his brothers, and wondered if in any 
other city were spilled so many lonely men as roll into the 
lap of London. There were scattered among the lapful 
of threaded necklaces, beads of every sort; exquisite 
beads many of them, perfectly cut and polished and 
bored ; flawless ; some of them finer than any that were 
stringed ; but they did not match. 

“ She was deserted by the father of Jesus.” Arnold 
made a movement from among the men he stood with 
and succeeded in working his way among the audience 
of the woman who had arrested his attention. “ She was 
deserted, like I am deserted by my husband. She was 
without a home, the same as I am without a home. I am 
too old to be the mother of a child like she was at that 
time—I am sixty-three—but I am a mother and a 
grandmother. I love Christ; He was a genius. He had 
a great intellect. He was a great teacher. He was no 
more the son of a god than I am the daughter of a 
god.” 

A man in front of Arnold laughed and moved away, 
so that he could see the speaker without anyone between. 
Her voice rose in vehemence. “ I am here because men 
are neglecting their duties. I am a woman, and it is 
men’s duty to protect us and find shelter for us. I have 
no shelter. I am starving.” 

This was the first time that Arnold had heard anyone 
say, “ I am starving,” and he thought how utterly 
foolish the word sounded. He himself was starving, and 
yet the words meant nothing. He knew the dictionary 
meaning of them ; he knew what it was to starve ; but 
the words as words were as meaningless as a phrase 


BOLSOVER STREET 


253 


which one has repeated so many times in succession 
that it is merely a sequence of vowel and consonant 
sounds. 

“ I am starving. I have no shelter. I have a friend ; 
she is a poor woman, but she gives me ‘ a lie down.’ I 
have no pamphlets to sell, and if I had, this is a Royal 
park, and I could not offer them. If I had them, none 
of you men would have courage enough to follow me 
outside the gate and buy them or give me sixpence.” 

Arnold narrowed his eyes as he probed the quality 
of this. Was this the shrew ; was it the woman who 
thinks she knows men, telling them they dare not do a 
thing to get it done ? Was it not rather an astute 
starving woman avoiding the restrictions of the park ? 

The woman was continuing. “ I can stop no longer. 
I came down to put the case of that poor woman before 
you and ask you to do something to relieve her distress. 
I promised her I would, and I am too weak to do more 
now that I have done it. I am starving .” 

Her audience made way for her to pass. The empti¬ 
ness of language was puzzling to Arnold. Her last 
sentence had been spoken with all the graphic force of 
truth, and nobody knew what she meant; not even 
Arnold, and he was starving at that moment. Custom 
and the habit of meals which had brought the woman’s 
audience to, and in cases past, their individual prime, 
allowed them to sum up without definite thought. 
“ Yes, she is starving ; but people do not really starve 
nowadays. Let her say that she ‘ can play upon a comet 
as if it were a banjo ’ and I should understand what she 
was trying to say in metaphor, but tell me she is starving 
and immediately I wonder what she had for breakfast. 
4 Starveling ’ she possibly meant. To starve is to 
die ; she is not dead. I myself sometimes say ‘ I am 
starving ’ when the waiter hangs back with the third 
or fourth course. Starving ! What is starving ? ” 

The woman, erect, walked away, not loitering as one 
who permitted almoners. A girl of twenty stopped her 
to speak. Gilded feathers of hair stuck out from the 
girl’s tam-o’-shanter ; her dress was London-smart— 


254 


HAMMER MARKS 


good copy of a bad copy of an actress’s clothes—but 
her clothes were in eruption of disorder owing to a 
ruckled scarf. Yet she took off her gloves to shake 
hands with the woman as they parted. 

The woman was passing through the gate. Arnold 
had difficulty in catching up with her. As soon as she 
detected that she was being followed she began to cross 
the road. He raised his hat and called to her. 

“ Madam, may I speak to you for a moment ? ” 

“ Certainly,” she said, delaying. 

He was not good at dispensing charity ; he blurted 
out, rather than said, “ Madam, I am almost as poor 
as you are, but if you will take this I should be pleased.” 
He pulled out a small coin from his pocket, and they 
both looked at it. 

It was a farthing. 

He blushed furiously. “I am sorry,” he said. “ I 
thought it was a sixpence.” He fetched up the silver 
coin and offered it. 

“ I cannot take it; you say you are as poor as I am. 
I have just been given threepence and I shall have 
more. When I have rested I am going to speak again 
to get relief for Mrs.-” 

“ I cannot help anyone else, and only you because 
you say you are starving.” 

“ Wait a minute. You heard me speaking about 
her or-” 

“No,” he said. “ I only came near when you said 
you were starving.” 

“ Then you don’t know what I am. I am an atheist, 
and, more than that, I am an anarchist. I do not 
believe in banks. I do not believe in-” 

“ I don’t care what you are except that you are a 
person starving.” The repetition of the word took 
away its last vestige of meaning, making it quite inane, 
as if to say it properly one should have straws in one’s 
hair. 

“ I cannot take it; you are as I am.” 

“ Almost, I said,” argued Arnold. Under this 
provocation he felt like throwing the coin in the gutter. 





BOLSOVER STREET 


255 


“ Listen. If you speak the truth and understand the 
ethics of starvation you know that after the first days, 
inertia and indifference descend upon you, not to be 
disturbed unless you see someone eating or smell food, 
unless you pass a shop where they sell what you are 
wanting. I have got to that stage. I stick to up and 
down Marylebone Road, which is without shops, when 
I want new air. I came here down side-streets, and 
did not look as I crossed where the shops are. If I 
buy a loaf with this money and break my fast I shall 
have to five the worst days all over again to no purpose. 
I do not think I could bear it twice.” 

“ I understand.” 

“ If a miracle happens and I live till my work comes 
round ; if I five to be even affluent, able to afford to 
pack a house from cellar to garret with food, always— 
always—always there will be flashing about in my soul 
terror lest I have to five again through the first stages 
of starvation. Take this money and rid me of tempta¬ 
tion. See, this morning I had to get money for rent. 
I sold my coat and vest, but it was not enough, for they 
were very worn ; I had to let my linen go, and tHere 
was sixpence too much—this sixpence. There is a seat 
if you wish to rest, but take the money first. May I sit 
beside you ? ” 

She made room for him. She held the coin betwixt 
her thumb and finger. She stared before her in silent 
thought or reverie. 

“ What shall you do at the end of the week ? ” She 
asked at length. 

“ Nothing, I hope.” 

She looked at the sixpence. “You are starving and 
so am I, but I am a woman and I am old.” 

“ Yes, and I am a man and I am young; therefore 
my appetites are stronger, and hunger is more acute.” 

“Yes, that is true. But this is your first time, 
whereas I have often starved.” 

“ The competition,” thought Arnold. He said, 
“ Yes. This is my first experience ; therefore doubly, 
trebly hard to me. The old soldier can laugh more 


256 HAMMER MARKS 

easily when wounded than the boy stricken in his first 
fight.” 

“ When your work comes round, you say, you can 
live again. I have no such hope.” 

“ Even if I am here then—even if it came to-morrow 
and I had tools—I should not have energy to work. I 
have only one hope, and that is in having no hope.” 

“ There are thousands of the workers starving in 
London.” 

“You are a propagandist, and peel the meaning off 
words. If there were as many as one thousand men 
without ideals who were starving—I mean starving — 
in London, do you think they would let London stand ? 
If I had never had ideals, do you think that I should 
let that man walk unmolested past me? ” He flung 
his hand towards a man, fat and gross, a Jew in furs 
who was passing. “ Why should I let him get home to 
supper ? I have nothing to lose and I do not want to 
live ; why should I not bite out his throat with my 
teeth and feel his cosseted blood spurt on to my frozen 
body-” 

The anarchist woman interrupted with a quiet, 
“ I repeat that there are thousands of the workers 
starving.” 

“ If they are, what comparison is there ? The workers, 
phlegmatic, physical-feeling people only. To me the 
physical is but a tithe of the suffering, the tithe I pay 
to God in return for having accepted my life from Him ; 
the physical I can master. I am an artist, so I suffer 
more—am handicapped. If it were not for being 
such, I could help starvation to its close. What is to 
prevent me welcoming into my heart the frost ? ” 

He wrenched open his macintosh and let the wind 
cavort on his breast. She did not look at him. She 
had previously noted how the covering sagged and 
stretched against him as he walked, and knew that he 
was almost naked beneath. 

“ You’re an artist,” she said. “ Perhaps I can help 
you. I do a lot of social work, and I’m arranging to 
meet a man to-morrow night who has influence. I’m 


BOLSOVER STREET 


257 


trying to fix for him to look at the pictures of a young 
man who is struggling up. I’ll mention you also if you 
will give me your address.” 

“ Bo you make arrangements for to-morrows ? ” 
exclaimed Arnold. “ Still I will give you my address ; 
but when I said I was an artist I meant in the emotional 
sense. Certainly I can sketch, but I have given up all 
thought of art; I jilted her before she had the chance to 
jilt me.” 

He took from an outer pocket an old letter. It 
happened to be one of Bennetta Sard’s, but the fact 
did not disconcert him as he looked over it to find a 
bare space big enough to write his name and address on. 
He tore the corner off and put it with the sixpence 
between the woman’s fingers. 

She said, “ Don’t talk to me for a while ; I have to 
straighten something out.” 

He left her to her thoughts. 

Aiter a time she spoke, and rose to confront him 
while she was speaking. “ You can sketch. You have 
thought yourself into bewilderment. I have been 
thinking for you. Rest all to-morrow till night—rest 
every day till night.” 

“ Every day! ” said Arnold disparagingly. 

“ Don’t exhaust your energies in tramping about. 

Get it into your head that you are going to fight- 

Don’t start interrupting me again. I know all about it. 
I know you have no weapons. All the same, you’ve 
got to win.” She put the sixpence on the bench, but 
retained the corner of paper. He shook his head and 
smiled. She took no notice, but continued. “ Don’t 
buy anything to eat with that; it’s the capital to start 
you in business. To-morrow night buy a paper pad and 
a pencil and begin-” 

Arnold laughed mirthlessly. 

“ Begin,” she said evenly. “ Go into saloon bars and 
draw the customers ; draw anything, but make them 
pay. You won’t be begging if you can sketch at all.” 

She walked away without looking back. He picked 
up the coin and dropped it into his pocket. Life was 

Rh 




258 


H AMMER MARKS 


no less miserable for him by reason of the hope indicated 
in the woman’s scheme. Like a python with its tail 
in its month, squirming slowly in unbroken oval, 
writhed round but one idea ; he had reached the point 
where starvation would soon bring death ; to begin to 
struggle for continuance of life now was probably to 
win his way back to no further than the point where 
he could feel again the intensest agony of new hunger ; 
was it worth it ? Was it worth using the last shreds of 
effort to disturb this coma, merely to feel with quivering 
rawness the prolonged operation of a new spell of 
privation ? Even the courage to live, the stamina of 
effort, was sapped away. 

But all the time, enclosed in the surround of his 
slow, revolving thought, there was squeaking hope, like 
a rabbit in the cleft of a stick—a meal stuck up in the 
middle of the circle made by the python which gnawed 
upon itself. 

As he made his circumspect way to Bolsover Street 
his thought rippled outward, but never the circle 
broke. 

The blue altar cloth of night was draped over the 
block of houses in which he lived ; the street lamps at 
the corners and before it shone like offertory candles. 
The lamp of the moon, which was kept always burning, 
was hung above ; the star-painted reredos of sky was 
extended above the altar. The place was holy with 
refuge to Arnold as he came in grateful sight of it. He 
would not begin the struggle again. If he did he might 
lose even this. 

“ Sanctuary,” he said as he clutched the knocker to 
support himself while he found his key. 

He was glad that he lived in the basement; it would 
have been so much more hopeless had he had to crawl 
upstairs instead of creep down. He gave a great sigh 
of accomplishment as he leaned against the door within 
his room. Always on entering he felt as if he had been 
pursued, and had slammed the door in the baying mouths 
of the pack. He slipped as he moved from the door. He 
had fallen upon one knee, and he faced suddenly round, 


BOLSOVER STREET 


259 


partly retaining the posture. It seemed that someone 
had thrust against the door from the outside and flung 
him forward. 

His attitude was that of a gladiator preparing for 
an upward jab under the net of his opponent. He 
bared back his lips about his teeth. Who had a right 
to force an entrance here ? This was a thing which 
broken youth could fight—something tangible ; some¬ 
thing that a man could see and strike at. 

The door shook in its length and began to open. He 
gathered himself to leap upon the intruder. Slowly the 
door swung open, as if a fight breeze pressed it. It swung 
open to the full. Beyond, in the passage, there was— 
nothing ! Gloom and the stripes of the banisters, but no 
real thing, nothing tangible ; as ever, nothing that a 
man could grip and struggle with. 

It mattered not; he had been roused from meek 
acceptance of his fate. He went into the passage and 
felt about in the gloom. “ I must have started the door 
open with a jerk as I left it,” he said. He came back into 
the room and put a brick (kept for the purpose) against 
the door, and, crossing to the window, looked up the gully 
of walls at the star-patch to be seen. 

“ I will five ! ” he said, hissing it against the glass 
as if it were a curse against himself. Perhaps it was. 

Perhaps it was. He believed that it was on the 
morrow, when he strode to and from a corner in Chancery 
Lane. “ The Palfrey and Ball ” sent out its warm and 
spirity breath from the corner. It was the door of the 
saloon bar which alternately attracted and repelled 
him. In the secrecy of his macintosh pocket he clutched 
the sketching-pad. Ten times he walked to the door, 
put his fingers upon the handle ; ten times he hurried 
away from it. Each time that he Was routed by 
sensitiveness his indecision and alarm increased. 

Each time that he turned to coax himself to the ordeal 
anew he had to argue with himself more and more 
deliberately. He returned to the attack again ; again 
he felt to see if his macintosh was thoroughly buttoned ; 
again he looked at the clock in the formidable bar to see 


260 


HAMMER MARKS 


if it was too early yet or too late to begin this night. 
It was eight o’clock—the time he had decided on. 
Again he looked critically at “ The Palfrey and Ball ” 
to see if he had chosen a good starting-place, in hope 
of excuse that it was too humble or too lavish for his 
purpose. He would have to abide by his choice, he had 
been since six o’clock making it. He held out his hand 
to see if it was steady enough to control lines. His 
hand shook. It would have to be to-night; to-morrow 
he would be unable to hold the pencil. His hand was 
upon the door ; he was pushing it inward ; he was 
standing at the counter, and could hear his own voice 
as over a telephone. 

“ Good evening.” 

Anticipating an order, the lady coquetting behind the bar 
responded “ Good evening,” preserving in the ordinary 
phrase its tang of welcome, so gracious was her business 
smile. She was amply built and had twirls of black, 
well-kept hair flattened to her forehead. She looked as 
if she had never missed a second helping of pudding in 
her life. Arnold would have preferred to make his first 
plea to someone who had suffered so that even her smile 
was sad; so might she be moved to let him stay and use her 
premises. He flung himself upon the mercy of the plump. 

“ Do you mind my asking these gentlemen if I may 
draw caricatures or portraits of them ? ” 

“ I don’t mind if they’ll let you,” she said, retaining 
her rippled smile. The kindness of this reply reduced 
her avoirdupois in Arnold’s estimation to something 
less than what he would have first held it to be—fat. 
She was not really bad-looking ; rather comely, in fact, 
since she continued to smile. One had to admit that she 
was plump, but no more than pleasantly so. Her dress 
was cut low, but then, her bosom was white, and the room 
was warm—luxuriously warm. The warmth sent the 
blood shooting through him like rockets, tingling and 
showering. He had not contemplated this asset of his 
enterprise ; the warmth—warmth for his limbs and 
warmth to his spirit by fellowship with human kind, 
however superficial that fellowship was. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


261 


Arnold pulled out his pad and looked eagerly to the 
tall man with a Duke of Wellington face who had been 
jesting with the lady. “ May I draw a portrait or a 
caricature of you ? ” he asked. 

44 Certainly,” said the man, not turning from pouring 
water into whisky. “ A caricature—not a portrait at 
any price.” 

“ I charge threepence each,” said Arnold apprehen¬ 
sively. The man went on talking and laughing with his 
friends. The moment Arnold’s pencil touched paper he 
lost all his nervousness ; he was decanting his stored art. 
His model was ideal. Had Arnold sought through 
curiosity crowded London, he would have found none 
other to so please his vein ; a small head, with every 
feature finely shaped, but much too large for so slight 
a head. The man was at least six feet five inches in 
height, and wore a high hat. 

The man gave a swift glance at Arnold, intentional 
in its direction ; not at his face, not at the sketch, but at 
the front of the macintosh. Arnold started, and his 
pencil stuck. He was suddenly struck with stage-fright. 
His fingers stiffened, so that they felt like a packet of 
nuts and bolts. 44 He must have watched me come in,” 
he thought. 44 My macintosh must be hanging peculiarly 
despite the newspapers packed round me to stop it 
flapping.” The man lifted his glance to meet the glance 
of the younger man, smiling as he did so. 

So long it was since anyone had smiled at Arnold that 
the kin dliness was a caress. 44 You lend yourself to 
caricature,” he said, attempting to retrieve his ease. 

44 1 know, with a nose like this,” was the reply. 
44 Don’t be kind to it; I want a caricature.” Arnold 
was not kind to it. The lead rode over the pad with a 
few more purring glides and the caricature was submitted. 

44 People do not know what their profiles look like ; 
show it your friends and ask them,” said Arnold, who was 
satisfied with the sketch. 

44 1 do know what my side-face looks like,” said the 
man, sliding his fingers down the cord to his pince-nez. 
44 1 dress by a three-mirrored cheval.” 


262 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ If you are satisfied with it I will sign it. I only take 
payment for what I sign.” 

“ Sign it.” The man dropped the glasses from his nose. 

“ What will you drink ? ” said the man, holding out 
his cigarette case as Arnold whisked a brief signature 
across the paper. This was rather disturbing to the 
caricaturist, who was afraid that liquor might play 
havoc with him owdng to his fast. He feared to annoy 
the obliging proprietress by refusing. 

“ A bitter,” he said. 

There were eight or nine men in the room, all appar¬ 
ently successful and intellectual men, and they were 
friends. The caricature was provoking mirth and 
badinage, and several wished to possess it. As Arnold 
raised his glass he realised that his worst fear (exhorting 
clients) had no foundation ; he had but to finish his 
first sketch of a night in a good-class saloon and more 
would be wanted. 

The friends arranged among themselves who next 
should be drawn. A jovial, rotund man was selected, 
and showed inclination to sit still for Arnold’s benefit. 
Arnold begged him not to, and moved about, keeping 
to the angle he wanted. 

“* Do you mind if I indicate the gloss on your nose ? ” 
he asked. 

“ Warts and all,” said several, as if by preconcerted 
signal. 

“ Warts only, as it’s a caricature,” said the man 
under the pencil. This was what Arnold wanted ; he 
could have sung. 

“ You enjoy doing these, don’t you? ” said one of the 
laughing company. 

“ Love it,” said Arnold, who was happy. “ Why, do 
I show it ? ” 

“ You do a bit.” 

Arnold laughed. He was very happy. Was it the 
warmth of the room, the kindness of his clients, excite¬ 
ment, or the feel of a pencil long estranged from his 
fingers ? Possibly it was the combination which 
delighted him. He heard the music of his blood. The 


BOLSOVER STREET 


263 


men were talking to him, and he was answering. He 
ripped off the drawing and offered it. As he was signing 
it he heard the man calling for a drink for him. “ Please, 
no,” he exclaimed. 

44 You must,” said the man. 44 Oh, and a good cigar.” 

“ Please, please no,” said Arnold. “ I cannot draw 
when I am 4 creamy,’ and I must finish my night.” 

44 You must.” 

44 Oh, well,” said Arnold, who was also afraid of them 
finding out that when he was drunk his pencil had 
magic, requiring only that it should be held before it 
protrayed in startling comparison the incongruities such 
as are side by side in every face. 44 Oh, well,” he said ; 
touched the glass with his bps, and set it aside. 

He was about to commence his next drawing when the 
man (forty, handsome save for a wryness of his smile, 
blue-jowled, door-knobs on his forehead) reached and 
ran his palm over Arnold’s knee. 44 You are doing this 
for fun,” he said. 

44 No,” said Arnold, 44 I’m doing it to get some 


money. 

The man laughed. 44 That settles it; you are doing it 
for a wager.” 

44 No, really no.” 

44 You are doing it to get types. You memorise.” 

44 1 could memorise, but I shall not. I am doing it for 
a living.” 

44 You are-” . . _ „ 

Arnold handed him his caricature. 44 Shall I sign it ? 

44 If you will have a drink with me.” ^ 

44 1 will have a cigarette instead. If you don’t mind.” 

44 Then you will have a drink when you have finished 
for the night ? Have you ever been in saloons doing this 
before ? ” 

44 No. How can you tell ? ” 

44 You have called no one 4 sir.’ ” 

44 Shall I sign it, sir ? ” 

44 Ha ! ha ! ha ! Yes, but you’ll have to have a big 
drink when you are through. Here’s a match.” 

44 Pleasure.” 



264 


HAMMER MARKS 


No money had passed as yet; he might, for any sign 
of condescension, have been entertaining personal and 
educated friends. It was all so different from what he 
had anticipated. Yet they must know, they must know 
that he was destitute; they must know, however 
careful he had been in shaving and trimming his hair ; 
however new his macintosh looked and whatever shine 
was on his boots. Once he stopped and regarded himself 
in a bevelled mirror. His cheeks were bright, and he 
looked gay and debonair ; his dress did not betray him. 
In the mirror he met the tall man’s gaze. The gaze had 
curiosity, and told him that none of them knew what he 
was ; he was a mystery to even the tall man who knew 
that his macintosh fell in unusual folds. 

Arnold did not proceed without one failure. The 
manager was fetched from another part of the bar that 
he might be drawn. Arnold bungled from the first fine 
of him he drew. There was no hint of likeness, or contor¬ 
tion of likeness. The tall man tore the sheet from the pad 
and told Arnold not to disgrace himself. 

“ I see the compliment in that,” said Arnold to 
himself. Returning to depicting, he gave himself and 
the company satisfaction. A glass of hot whisky was set 
before him. He had but one more customer to draw, 
therefore he drank. He felt that this was his last safe 
drink, especially as he was “ mixing.” If he would 
be allowed to stop at this his joy was perfect. About 
him was the golden haze in which one seems to walk in 
distances ; the floor was not hard ; indeed, was scarcely 
firm to walk on ; he and all his neighbours progressed 
a little way away from the floor ; without actually 
floating they progressed unhindered. When men spoke 
their voices came vibrating along silver strings, and life 
was muted to existence in a pleasing dream. He hoped 
that no one would insist on him having another drink, 
which would take him out of the “ creamy ” state to 
“ half-seas-over.” 

He sat down to draw the last man, sat at a table 
with an old gentleman who was telling him an incident 
which befell him because he was King Edward’s double. 


BOLSOVER STREET 


265 


A client of his had rushed up and shaken hands with His 
Majesty on Edinburgh station, thinking it was he, and 
the King had said- 

Arnold listened to this while he looked hard at the 
man he was to draw. He was trying to decide if he was 
not already far from sober. However intently he looked, 
the man’s face was all out of focus ; the nose looked as 
if it had been Roman before someone had walked about 
on it; the eyes were valiant, but were set so ruggedly 
that they watched the world through a wooden mask. 
Could it be owing to mixing whisky and bitter ? The 
outline did not quiver—not much. Finally he set down 
the outline, as it came to him through the mist, because 
it always came the same. He did not dare to caricature 
it further. Battered as it was, he liked the face. He 
pulled the paper from the pad, hesitating about sub¬ 
mitting it, but when it was handed round everyone 
wanted it. 

“You can say,” said the man with the face which 
Arnold could not believe, “ that you have drawn a 
champion boxer. I won the eleven stone open champion¬ 
ship in nineteen-o ” (that was the year which Arnold 
found scribbled on his pad next morning). 

“You can say,” said first one and then another, “ that 

you have drawn-” Down the silver strings vibrated 

the names of lawyers, one author, and King Edward’s 
double ; but Arnold forgot the first syllable of each 
name before the last was ended. They put tankards and 
glasses to his hand and held cigarettes for him to take. 
The tall man paid double the full fees of the evening. 
Arnold could not be churlish and refuse goodwill; he 
drank, and the golden haze filled with a splendour of 
butterfly wings which fanned about him where he sat. 

“ Time, gentlemen, please.” He was saved from 
exhibiting his incompetence to accept without folly 
their generosity. The hours had passed fleetingly as 
a bare quarter, and it was time to close the door. They 
shook hands with him. The adventure was ended— 
not ended quite ; to-morrow he would dine. 




Chapter VIII 


Having overcome his diffidence on his first night in 
saloon bars, Arnold thought that he had conquered it 
for good, or so long as he should need to continue in 
such means of livelihood. He was wrong. Upon the 
second night he determined to commence at seven 
o’clock ; yet not before an hour later than that could 
he decide on his starting-point. “ The Golden Cup,” 
in a lane off Fleet Street, showed promise of reward if he 
could only force himself to enter. Again and again he 
approached the entrance and retreated. 

He asked himself continually what was his dread. 
Beggary ? No ; he gave good value for money. Pride ? 
He had no right to pride ; in his blood was a legion 
of paupers. Prostitution of art ? He did not consider 
honest work as such. Falling away from his ideals ? 
Rather he reached toward his one remnant of an ideal— 
to dine from a table with a white cloth upon it. 

At “ The Palfrey and Ball ” they had been good to 
him ; did he fear an anticlimax ? Was he afraid of 
slight ? A little twitch of anger flicked him at thought 
of being slighted. He was in the vestibule of the saloon 
bar now. A heavy curtain served in lieu of doors. He 
swung into its folds, and, pushing them from him, 
entered as if to meet a threatening spectre. A tinkling 
clock sprinkled the notes of the half-hour chime about 
the room as he entered. 

The room was evidently the preserve of a small 
gathering of journalists. A row of them was hugged 
close to the counter sweeping from one corner in the 
curve of a pruning-knife. Each head turned ; a friend 
was anticipated, or one who would stand drinks. 
Arnold raised his hat and asked permission to sketch. 

266 


BOLSOVER STREET 267 

“ I’m afraid no one here has much money,” replied 
the proprietor. 

A big man (slumbrous eyes, grizzled gold moustache, 
pit of a dimple in his chin) said, in a voice plaited with 
Irish vowels, “Try the ‘Lamb and Fool.’ I believe 
there are some gentlemen there who have some money.” 

“ Are you sarcastic ? ” asked Arnold sternly. The 
man had spoken laughingly, but without trace of 
sarcasm. There was no reason why Arnold should have 
so replied, but that was what he did say. 

“ No, no. No, old man. I think it would be a good 
pitch for you.” 

“ Where is the ‘ Lamb and F ool ’ ? ” 

“ Lower down on the same side.” 

“ Thank you.” 

“ Good luck.” 

Arnold went to the house of cheer lower down the 
lane. The saloon bar was at the end of a garishly tiled 
passage. He entered hurriedly. There were many 
people in the room, and he thought of retreating, but 
held his way to the counter and obtained the permission 
which he sought. 

A circle of jesting men were spread and clustered at 
a ring of tables. They were men in their thirties, and 
a pretty woman was perched upon a high stool. She 
was amusing them with an impersonation of one of 
their number who was fuddled. It was a very clean 
group, and Arnold addressed them collectively. A 
moment’s quiet; the quiet of good-looking men shy 
of exhibiting what interest they might have in then- 
appearance. The pretty girl regarded Arnold with 
a child’s stare which reminded him plaintively of 
Bennetta Sard. No one answered. He felt very 
concerned at having checked their mirth. 

“ It will be a caricature. I will not make anyone 
good-looking,” said Arnold, steadfastly clinging to his 
intent. Having at one time had good looks, he knew 
that it made a man constrained from showing interest 
in portraiture. He looked down at the youngest and 
handsomest, who was looking upward past straight 


268 


HAMMER MARKS 


brows at him. Their gaze travelled along the same 
bore, and was seriously intent. The silence obtained. 
Arnold did not know how to withdraw. 

“ Don’t draw mine,” said the young man, as one who 
craves a boon. “ Have a drink instead.” 

“ I would rather earn some money. I shan’t want 
anyone to stop still. I get more life into it if you are 
vivacious again.” 

“ Don’t draw me,” said the young man, lowering his 
eyelids. 

“ Thank you,” said Arnold lamely, and put his pad 
in his pocket. He bit the surface of his lip. The others 
were watching him, looking full in his face ; he could 
not for the moment think how to get away. He was 
up against the virtues—modesty, kindness, and the 
graciousness of part refinement. About to retire, he 
raised his hat to the pretty girl. She was the wife of 
one of the men. Her glass contained dark wine. So 
much Arnold gathered before she instantly smiled. 

“ Draw Val,” she said. “ Draw Val,” Val was the 
man who was fuddled. A laughing cry of agreement 
came from the group. Friends tilted the man’s hat 
and fixed the spears of his waxed moustache—one 
point up, one point down. It required only a few 
Phil May strokes to limn him as a dissolute toper. 
There was a shout of exultation as the paper was laid 
on the table. 

The youngest man pulled Arnold’s sleeve, saying, “ I’ll 
get you plenty of customers. Wait quietly ; you shall 
draw everybody. Pull a chair in here where you can 
see everybody. Have whisky to inspire you ? Good. 
Draw the lady while your drink is coming. And put 
underneath ‘ Our Maimie.’ ” 

Val’s picture came back to have a motto under¬ 
scribed. The crowd was busy in inventing captions. 
The words he wrote beneath the portraits were merrily 
explained to the artist, so that he was entertained with 
anecdotes from the time he sat down, and he abandoned 
himself to their young and energetic joyousness, and 
laughed, and was careless with the hour in its merriment, 


BOLSOVER STREET 


269 


and at that he was richer in content and assurance 
as well as coin when the doors closed. 

Yet when the morrow evening came he was loath, as 
before, to enter the saloon bars. 

He felt ill and weak—crushingly ill and pitifully 
weak. He leaned against the brass rail which was 
before a bar window and felt acutest misery. The wind 
whimpered through a tree which grew on the kerb, 
with its branches brushed up against the night sky. 
In a flat near, someone was practising upon a piano, 
playing over and over the second phrase of “ Valse 
Triste.” The shuddery music was horrible to him, as if 
he was helpless, hearing someone struggle for breath. 
A swift rain began to beat on the street, and he stepped 
into the doorway. 

There was warmth and the comfort of activity for 
him in the bar ; he pushed open the door and approached 
the barmaid. He had to repeat his question several 
times before she comprehended his wish. She told him 
to ask the manager, who was drinking with his friends, 
but she did not indicate which was he. 

Arnold felt that it was folly to proceed, as he felt so 
ill, but he crossed to the main group and asked for the 
manager. He had to ask several times before being 
directed. 

“ Speak up,” said the manager, scowling. “ What 
do you want me for ? ” 

Again Arnold requested to be allowed to draw the 
patrons of the house. 

“ Well, but be quick then. There’s not much money 
about, and we don’t run this as an office for everybody’s 
trade. Better come nearer the end of the week.” 

“ Very good, thank you.” Arnold went into the 
street, and the rain rushed upon him. There was a 
saloon opposite. He crossed to it and entered. As 
soon as he was past the door a man with matches 
proffered his wares, and then one with bootlaces. At 
the next step an old woman, with painfully neat cloak 
and bonnet, whined to him that her three sons had been 
killed that week in a pit disaster, and she extended her 





270 


HAMMER MARKS 


hand, as if she had done all that was necessary to 
obtain alms. A banjo spluttered its notes at the door¬ 
way, and two men began to sing a duet, asking what 
would happen 


If those little baby fingers, 

Pressed against the window-pane. 

Should be cold and stiff to-mowwow, 

Never trouble us again. 

If the blue eyes of our darling- 

Arnold realised that he was not in the type of house in 
which his talent would be appreciated. The men in 
the rain, who in song requested all and sundry to 
“ gather up the sunbeams lying all around our path, 
let us gather wheat and roses, flinging out the thorns 
and chaff,” they were the unfortunates who had need 
of the spare coin in this class of bar, and he had no 
right to deprive them of it when he could get it in 
places where they would not be welcomed. This 
place was all malformed sound, and glaring light, and 
humid with peculiar smells ; it made his head swim. 
Someone laid a hand upon his arm. It was a garish 
woman who stank of violets. 

“ I am no good to you,” he said, shaking his head. 
“ I am hard up.” 

“You get into the air ; you ain’t well,” said the 
woman. “ Have you come in for a drop of brandy 
to put you right ? ” 

“ No. Which is the door ? I am dizzy. Get me 
outside.” He felt that she, or someone slight, was 
supporting him. “ Please,” he said, after a pause. 

The street singers were screaming sentiment near his 
ear ; he was passing them. The rain was hissing on 
his macintosh ; he was in the street. He was stumbling ; 
the woman had left him. He lifted up his face to 
delicious cold rain, and the earth was heaving up and 
down with rhythm beneath his feet. The walls were 
falling from him and falling to him ; only one thing 
was continual—the sweet smite of the flashing drops. 

He took off his hat and opened his macintosh to get 


BOLSOVER STREET 


271 


more of the rain. In the rain was salvation. What was 
slipping from him? It was only the paper packing 
which he had disturbed. Somewhere near him a woman 
or a shrill animal shrieked with laughter, and a man’s 
voice said disgustedly, “ Drunk. Pawned his shirt to 
get it.” But the rain, the blissful rain, persisted. It 
trickled and flowed lambently about his breast. It 
would be his deliverer. It would bring him sufficient 
presence of mind to get him back to his sanctuary in 
Bolsover Street—the blessed rain, the blessed rain 
which washed him and riveted the giddy earth. 

He was almost his normal self soon, but he was not 
sure of his direction. By the time he reached his 
whitewashed room it had never seemed so precious, so 
inviolate. In the gloom, its ghost-walls showed guardian 
as those of a sepulchre ; in its stillness there was solace ; 
in its entrenchment, by reason of the closed door, 
there was privilege which amounted to comfort. Upon 
the other side of the door he was a creature of Eate ; 
here, beside his own hearth, within his own home, he 
was master of his destiny. 

He pressed round and round the embracing walls, 
calling them “ the cloisters of his life-song ” in fond 
foolishness. He came to the window—sheets of plate 
ice running with rain—and whispered to it of its 
diamond shield, its crystal guard. Its transparency 
was but an accident of necessity ; it had oneness with 
the walls in their surround of fealty. He passed on 
from the window, his nails scratching across the glass, 
and again the walls were rough and masculine and 
sympathetic to his wet breast as he clung. 

He reached the door. “ My friend ! ” he articulated, 
as he twisted the useless knob in his fingers, and spread 
his other hand about the panels. “ My friend. Best 
friend that ever man had. A knight in armour with 
naked sword, guarding me from the world. In the 
dark I can feel the flats of your armour. You must 
guard me more watchfully than ever now, for I am 
stricken. Let no one come in, for no one who would 
wish to pass is my friend. I have given no one the 


272 


HAMMER MARKS 


password, but I will give it to you because a beautiful 
silver knight, whose crest is a halo, and who is stronger 
than you, despite your tried valour, will come to me 
soon. He will brush you aside as though you were no 
more than a door, an ordinary wooden door. He knows 
the password, although I did not give it him. Do not 
seek to stay him. Spring back to let him pass; it will 
be the last and greatest of your services to me. But 
let no one else pass, no one. Last night, when I was 
rich, I paid your hire again for a fortnight. It is more 
than enough. You know I’m stricken, don’t you ? 
I am burning with fire and running with ice. Let no 
one pass, no one. You have been good to me—good 
as God. The password is ‘ The End.’ ” 

He turned from the door and began to stumble towards 
his pallet of straw. He stumbled because it seemed 
that electric lights had been switched on, and he was 
in a hall of classic statues. The marble figures were 
placed close together about the floorspace, and he could 
see his bed in the middle of them. He climbed over the 
straining marble backs of “ The Wrestlers,” and squeezed 
between “ The Disc Thrower ” and “ The Slave ” to 
get to his rest. “ The Wingless Victory ” was in his 
way. Impatiently he tried to shift it, but had to try 
another course, beside “ Mercury Resting.” 

He reached his bed at last, familiar yet strange bed, 
made from the straw in which the statues had been 
packed. He lay upon his back and looked up at the 
shell of the marble dome—high, high above him. The 
temple was not so big as he had at first thought. The 
dome was poised above a circle of slender columns. 

He noticed that the veins in the marble were not 
veins, but crevices. The pillars were splitting ; the 
dome was cracking ; the whole temple was falling 
in upon him. It shimmered resplendent for a moment 
ere it broke inward and let the dome fall. It broke 
into millions of flowers, falling—not shards of marble, 
but lilies and passion-flowers, white roses and cream 
roses, falling, falling—falling. The blossoms as they 
fell changed to oval raindrops, shining witii rainbow 


BOLSOVER STREET 


273 


gleam. And falling, the shower softened to dew so 
gentle that it could not harm, yet even then, before it 
touched him, it dissolved in perfume—perfume of old 
fragrance, the fragrance of slumber. He slept. 

When Arnold woke the daylight was as sure as ever it 
was in that room at the bottom of a well. Sunlight 
fell glinting through the glistening panes. A dozen 
oblongs of it made a shining square on the bare boards, 
where it lay like the breastplate of the high priest of 
Israel. 

He shivered. His macintosh lay about him frozenly 
and his hair was soaked, yet a burning thirst possessed 
him. A tin of water was by the fireplace. Having the 
will to fetch it, he discovered his weakness; he could not 
sit up ; he could scarcely roll over towards the tin. 
He reached out his hand, but the water was still a foot 
away, and he was weak. He had only the floor to 
press against to make his way towards it, and every 
muscle was too puny to lift him to his knees. 

He rested for a few minutes, then, heeling over, fell 
on his back toward the can. He could just touch the tin 
with his finger-tip. He caressed and fondled the tin 
with the points of his fingers while he rested. Whatever 
happened he must have the drink, but he did not want 
to get too far from the bed because of the difficulty of 
getting back to it. 

He heard the front door slam ; he supposed that it 
was someone coming in who had wakened him. He feebly 
cursed whoever it might have been that had done him 
this injury. He shuffled forward on his shoulder until 
he knew he grasped the tin. He clutched at it and the 
tin upset, spilling the priceless liquid over the greedy 
boards, which soaked it up. He moaned in his despair, 
rocking his head to and fro so that his skull knocked upon 
the boards. The hell in his throat threatened to consume 
him. His moans altered to dry sobs and then to puppy 
whimpering. 

The door was thrust open, and he stared petrified 
at the woman who entered. His mouth worked feebly 
before he muttered, “ Of course, of course, but I shall 
Sh 


274 


HAMMER MARKS 


see a good many things before it’s all done with. Parrots 
flying round the room, devils and kings, and 
Tender God, how real she looks ! ” 

The woman whom he saw was Bennetta Sard. As in 
amazement, she was leaning forward watching him with 
startled eyes. Then she stepped fully into the room 
and came swiftly towards him. 

“ Poor boy, poor boy,” she kept repeating. 

“ You have no right to be here, Mrs. de Valing.” 

She started. “ I’m not Mrs. de Valing. I’m Bennetta 
Sard,” she said. 

“ John Rockby told me you were going to marry, and 
that was a long time ago—ages and ages.” 

“ I did tell Mr. Rockby that Mr. de Valing had asked 
me to marry him ; that he was waiting my answer, and 
that I should accept his proposal. But—when I saw 
him I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t consent, however 
much I wished to. I just couldn’t do it.” 

Arnold laughed. “ Why didn’t you knock before you 
came in ? ” he asked. 

“ Because I heard you weeping.” She was disengaging 
herself from her furs. 

“ I never weep ! ” he said hotly. “ In a minute you 
will change to a devil with a big spike or a skeleton in 
chains of roses. Think I don’t know what you are 
made of ? Shadowshine.” 

“ You are delirious,” she said. She was stooping to a 
bag which she had put on the floor and was pulling 
out things—bottles of beef extract, eggs, and various 
tinned foods. She tumbled the tantalising food about 
near him, but not so near that he could touch it and 
convince himself of its unreality. 

“ I know I’m delirious ; I should not be seeing you, 
of all people in the world, if I wasn’t. I shouldn’t 
see you stacking food at my side if I wasn’t delirious.” 

“ But I am real, Arnold. It is me ! ” 

“ Yes, yes, I know, and the bottle of milk and the 
arrowroot biscuits are real. Oh, yes, quite real. Only 
pull a few live rabbits and snakes out of the bag for a 
change ; I’ve got used to the food.” 



BOLSOVER STREET 275 

She dropped all that was in her hands and came and 
knelt by him. 

“ Don’t touch me ! ” he begged. “ No, no, don’t 
touch me! ” 

“ Arnold, Arnold, I am real. You are soaked with 
water and shivering. Have my coat upon you.” She 
leaned and dragged her furs across the floor. 

“ No, no, no ! I am burning. Don’t touch me. Go 

away. Go away- Ah ! ” He finished in a scream. 

She was taking his macintosh from him, and he felt it 
leave him without his own aid. She wrapped him in a 
bundle, with her soft furs about him. He slipped 
wherever her movements rolled him. 

As she patted the collar of fur round his throat her 
hand touched him. “You are real ! ” he whispered, 
and lost consciousness. 

Bennetta felt him go limp in her arms, and she gazed 
wildly round the room. She looked at the bag with an 
impatient glance ; she had forgotten to buy the very 
thing she needed—brandy. He was heavy—he was 
unnaturally heavy. The great alarm of the most terrible 
came to her. Was he dead ? Had her unexpected 
appearance, coming when he was exhausted with hunger 
and sickness, killed him ? She—had she killed him ? 

She leaned his head against her knee and tried beneath 
the furs to find his breast. She must get help. Instead 
she clasped him close to her, and kissed him over and 
over again. What was the need for help if he was dead ? 

White, bloodless white, his face was, and sharp and 
thin. All his limbs were relaxed; would they grow 
stiff soon ? She must know. She must know if he was 
quite dead. She pulled him to the straw and laid him 
upon it. She flung aside the coat and lay beside him to 
listen for his heart. She could hear nothing. 

She rushed into the passage and knocked upon the 
next door. A woman opened it to her. “ I want help,” 
said Bennetta. “ I want help. There is a man in the 
next room very ill.” 

“ He is always ill,” said the woman. 

“ But he is dying now,” urged Bennetta. 



276 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ There is always someone dying in that room. It’s 
an unlucky room.” 

“ You will come ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ But I think he is dead,” whispered Bennetta, 
frightened to say it. 

“Oh, well, if he is dead he is dead,” said the woman, 
and she shut the door. 

Bennetta clenched her hands and ran back to the 
whitewashed room. She glanced at the recumbent 
figure which was in no way different; she felt for her 
purse in the hag and then sped up and into the street. 
It was noon, and she obtained brandy quickly and 
easily. When she came back to him he was as lifeless as 
before. She broke the bottle above a tin and forced him 
to take the spirit. 

His eyelids fluttered, but he did not raise them. She 
gave him more of the brandy. She knew that she was 
weeping with relief when he began to breathe. “ He 
wants warmth, he wants warmth,” she said, and tried 
to imbue him with the warmth of her own heart, holding 
him close in her embrace, with furs about them both. 

He opened his eyes and looked at her. He moved his 
hand and stroked her wrist. Then he sighed and closed his 
eyes again wearily. She placed him comfortably and rose. 

“ I’m going for a doctor. I won’t be long,” she said. 
“ Can you wait patiently till I come back ? ” 

He made no sign that he heard. 

“ I must go,” she said, and glanced round before she 
went out. 

When, some time later, she returned alone, he was 
gazing at the ceiling tranquilly, but an eager and excited 
expression came upon his face as she entered. 

“ You are to take everything as a matter of course,” 
she said firmly. “ The doctor will be here soon, and I’m 
not to excite you. I’m going to make a fire and warm 
the room. You must be quiet and not talk.” 

“ What doctor ? ” 

“ One I have been for. I thought he would be here 
first.” She had bundles of wood, and, under one arm, a 


BOLSOVER STREET 277 

packet of firelighters. She carried a kettle, cups and 
odd parcels. 

He watched her build and blaze a fire. “ There is some 
coal somewhere,” he said. “ I bought a bucketful on 
Wednesday. Was it Wednesday ? ” 

“ You mustn’t talk ; I’ve seen the coal.” 

I know I mustn t talk ; I’m going to get strong ; 
but I want to know lots. How did you get here ? How 
did you find me ? ” 

4 If I answer that, will you be satisfied and wait for the 
doctor ? ” She was putting bits of coal in a cairn above 
the fiery sticks. 

“ Yes, I will! ” 

You gave a woman in Hyde Park your address on a 
piece of paper with my address on the other side. She 
wrote and told me you were starving. Now be quiet.” 

“ But that is not a coincidence, and I believe in 
coincidences. That is perfectly natural.” 

“ You promised. Be quiet.” 

“ Yes, I will, but you’re not going away again, are 
you ? You’ll stay till night and come again to-morrow ? 
You won’t-” 

“ I shall stay. I shall stay through the night and 
to-morrow and through the night until you can do 
without me.” 

“ I can never do without you. I shall always want 
you. But what about your people if you stay with me? ” 

“ Be quiet; I don’t care a rap for anybody. You have 
got to get well.” 

- Yes, but-” 

“ I shall not answer.” 

“ But one question only. Do-” 

“ Be quiet.” 

“ Do you love me ? ” 

“ Yes, Arnold.” 

“ Then kiss me quickly before he comes in. I love 
you, Bennetta. Bennetta ! ” 

“ I can’t keep him quiet, doctor,” she said, as the 
door opened. “ I don’t know where his temperature has 
got to now.” 


















PART IV 


APRIL 


Chapter I 

There had been opportunities for beauty in this room, 
and Arnold and Bennetta had taken advantage of 
them. The high, wide bay window curved outward in 
tall and narrow panes like a manifold screen of glass. 
The pattern was made by trailing lengths of Virginia 
creeper, hanging, sweeping against the glass; the 
wavering bars of a balcony followed with simple orna¬ 
ment the line of the lowest panels ; two crooked plaster 
storks stood out on the platform, one curling its neck to 
a crock of breadcrumbs and the other, beak in air, 
gobbling a tinsel fish. London sparrows were for ever 
fluttering to and from the creeper and the crock of 
breadcrumbs. As often as one settled on the painted 
beak of the stork, so often Bennetta smiled. And as 
often as a new colour change ran swiftly down or spread 
slowly over the sky, so often Bennetta paused to watch 
it. If Arnold was with her, they linked arms and watched 
it together, not ceasing to congratulate themselves 
upon the idea of planting there two storks, which had 
turned a London window into a crystal Japanese 
screen, beautiful with fascinating variety. Bennetta 
had bought one stork and given it to Arnold ; Arnold 
had bought the other stork and given it to Bennetta. 
His stork was called “ Billy-willy ” and hers was 
“ Gwendoline ”—both for no reason. 

In the far corner was another screen, but of canvas, 
bought second-hand in Edgware Road, and painted 
over by them both. On it there was splendid Virginia 
creeper, sober sparrows, and two storks. The canvas 
screen had been strengthened, because upon the back 
279 


280 


HAMMER MARKS 


of it hung pots and pans, and it served to hide the 
gas-stove. 

The fireplace was of white marble. It had once been 
swaddled in a mantel-boarder and drapery defined by a 
woollen pom-pom fringe. The Brookes rented the room 
furnished, so they were not allowed to discard any of the 
furniture ; but upon a night, black with intrigue, they 
had plotted. Previously they had declared, times 
innumerable, that they each wanted to scream whenever 
they glanced at the festooned horror of pleated damask. 

“ Let us scream together then,” said Bennetta 
reasonably. “ We are married. We stick together in 
this. At the word one we stand to attention ; two, we 
look at the mantel fringe ; three, and we scream ; the 
loudest wins. The one who loses finds an explanation to 
give Mrs. Triggs when she comes running in to see what 
can the matter be. I shall win ; I’ve seen more of it 
than you have.” 

“ Come on, then,” agreed Arnold, laying down his 
pipe. “ One—wait. Wait a minute. If you are so 
jolly good at screaming, Ben, you scream and I’ll set 
fire to the fringe, but don’t scream till it’s well alight, in 
case she has time to save it.” 

“ But that’s arson.” 

“ Arson’s nice,” said Arnold, striking a match and 
starting a conflagration. 

“ I can’t scream—Arnold—I can’t scream. I didn’t 
think you meant it. You’ll have the house blazing 
in a minute, and-” 

“ See how prettily that blue flame licks along the pink 
folds. If the weaver could only get that colour in silk, 
what a rage it would have now. Don’t you admire 
the-” 

“ Arnold, you silly Billy, I thought you were 
gaming.” 

“ So I am, little woman. Now you can scream.” 

“ I can’t.” 

“ Oh, Bennetta, and you promised ! She’s coming up 
the stairs. Throw the things about and get excited. 
Fetch some water—bring a bucket—bring a bucket l ” 



APRIL 


281 


Mrs. Triggs, who fancied she smelt something burning, 
rushed in and saved the situation by ripping down the 
flaming cloth and flinging it into the firegrate. 

“ You are like two children! ” she snapped, wagging 
her finger at them. “You never ought to be left alone 
a minute. You were playing monkey-tricks. Don’t you 
tell me it was a cinder. It wouldn’t have been down 
at the two bottom corners and the middle top with 
nothing in between if it was a cinder. I suspected what 
you’d be up to when you said to me how artistic it was, 
how choice ; was it me as picked the colours.” The 
culprits stood close together. They feared that they 
had for once exhausted the great kindness of their 
landlady’s heart, so was she shaking. And there was not 
that twinkle in her eye which usually abided while she 
chid them for their imperturbable youngness. 

“You think I don’t know what silly, silly children 
young married folk can be ? ” A quaver came into the 
voice of Mrs. Triggs, a quaver more of distress than anger. 
Her fingers twitched upon her breast, as if she hurried 
over a rosary. “ Think I have not had children of 
my own grow up and marry and five in this very room, 
and—die in the hope of little children ? ” 

“ If I’d known that the fringe had such associations 
I’d have sooner done anthing than let it be destroyed,” 
said Bennetta, making a step forward from her husband’s 
side. 

“ I liked it,” said Mrs. Triggs. “ I can’t help my 
likes and my dislikes. I’m very full and generous with 
my likes and my dislikes. I knew you would not like 
the mantel-border. Penelope, as I told you lived here, 
never liked it, so I knew you would not. You’re like 
her in most things. She used to say things about the 
fringe, only put in a way so as not to hurt my feelings. 
She said them ’cause she’d got to say them, the same as 
you do. She was the only one of mine as was a girl. 
She used to say as the mantel-border was one of 
Roseytoe’s poems, ‘ Hang it, the fur and purple dies,’ 
and a lot more I can remember when I’m not upset. 
But I liked it, and she let it stop. Being my daughter. 


282 HAMMER MARKS 

she was like me—very full and generous with her likes 
and dislikes.” 

“ Don’t cry, Mrs. Triggs, don’t cry,” said Arnold, 
patting her hand. “ We will get another fringe-thing 
the same as that.” 

“ I don’t want it. I ought to have let Penelope have 
her way at the time with it. I had not ought to have 
baulked her in anything, but I could not tell she would 
be gone so quick. You alter what you like in the 
room.” 

“ We don’t want to alter anything,” said the culprits 
in unison. 

“ I like the pictures,” continued Bennetta. “ Only 
don’t be upset about it.” 

“ I like them as well,” added Arnold. “ I like the 
one of Beerbohm Tree best.” 

Oh, the print of Sir Herbert as Mephistopheles ! When 
Mrs. Triggs had gone two pairs of eyes turned straight 
towards it. 

“You know, you said it,” said Bennetta. 

“ I know I did, but I had my fingers crossed.” 

Therefore, although the white marble mantelpiece 
and marble hearth were restored to their pristine gloss 
and purity and splendour, the peculiar pictures con¬ 
tinued on the walls, and antimacassars and tidies still 
draped the mahogany furniture. When the idea of 
letting two rooms occurred to Mrs. Triggs, that she might 
have company, her first movement had been to have 
the walls papered with “ something cheerful.” Big 
greenhouse chrysanthemums—pink on a green ground— 
was what she selected. Both Bennetta and Arnold 
looked forward to the time when he could offer to repaper 
the room, but at the time of the restoration of the fire¬ 
place they had lived there only four months. 

For four months Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Brooke had 
lived there. They had been married longer than that ; 
they had been married six months ; but the first two 
months had been spent by Arnold in a nursing-home, 
where he recovered from the effects of privations. He 
did not quibble with his conscience as to why he should 


APRIL 


283 


or should not marry Bennetta Sard. He knew that 
she was the love of his life, the one love, and he took 
from Fate this glorious, timely gift as he had taken all 
the untimely blows which Fate had dealt him, without 
questioning as to his deserts. 

When the doctor had come to him in Bolsover Street 
he had arranged for his removal to the cleanly comfort 
and quiet of the nursing-home—a place of calm and 
forethought, healing the broken spirit as well as the 
worn body ; where Arnold pressed a bell and his least 
wish (if good for him) was gratified ; where he looked 
to the window and could see an apple-tree, of all lovely 
things in the world, an apple-tree in bud. 

At first he did not see Bennetta often, and when he 
did he was silent and happy—too happy to care where 
the money came from which provided the luxury of 
living like an invalid when he knew of no complaint 
which he had. Nerves was not a complaint; everyone 
had nerves ; and because he wanted to be strong now 
that he was happy he let the world roll rosily since it 
would, since it could. Afterwards, when he made 
enquiries, he was commanded not to worry about 
money matters. He knew that Bennetta had inherited 
money from her mother. How much that was he did 
not know. 

One day (and the apple-blossom was on the tree) 
he noticed that she was wearing a dress vaguely familiar 
to him. 

“ When did you wear that before ? ” he asked. “ I 
seem to remember it, Bennetta. Usually you wear the 
lavender one I like best, or the lavender one with the 
pattern. But I know that dress, dear. I know it 
ever so well.” 

“ I had it on when I came to your room in Bolsover 
Street.” 

“ Why haven’t you worn it since ? ” 

“ Because you like the others better.” 

“ I don’t know that I do, Bennetta, now that I see 
you wearing that. It’s simple, but I like it. Why 
didn’t you wear it again ? ” 


284 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ I—I thought the colour might depress you.” 

“ That bunch of flowers—anemones, aren’t they ? 
De Caen ?—are they real, or part of the dress ? ” 

“ They’re real, Arnold dear.” She loosened the wind¬ 
flowers, and moved tulips in a bowl of water to make 
room for them. 

“ I didn’t think they could be real; anemones close 
so quickly, especially De Caen. They’re always rather 
like paper flowers, carelessly made and a bit too brightly 
coloured to be real. Don’t you think so, Bennetta ? 
Bennetta, do you remember—do you remember painting 
anemones just the same as those when we used to sit 
on those little seats in the School of Art ? You had a 
different bow in your hair that week. It was black 
silk, with the fire edge of selvedge left on one side. Do 
you remember ? I’d forgotten that bow until I saw 
the lovely, clumsy flowers against your black dress.” 

“ Yes, I remember. You thought I didn’t know 
it was the selvedge.” 

“ Bennetta.” 

“ Yes, dear ? ” 

“ You’re not sitting down beside me like you usually 
do.” 

“ I was looking at the apple-blossom.” 

“ Why do you make me work up so carefully to ask you 
why you are in mourning and why you were in mourning 
when you first came to me ? Is it because it is someone 
who mattered terribly who died? Is it your father 
who is dead, Bennetta ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ How long ago was it, Bennetta dearest ? ” 

“ Two or three months ; I can’t remember quite 
without a great deal of pain. He played all night in 
the music-room. My room was above it. I listened to 
him playing right on into the morning.” 

“ Into the morning,” murmured Arnold. 

“He stopped in the middle of a note. ‘Angels’ 
Seranade * he was playing. I thought a string had 
snapped—but only for a second I thought that: it 
was his heart. You knew his heart was weak ? ” 


APRIL 


285 


44 Bennetta.” 

44 Yes, dearest ? ” 

44 Aren’t you tired of looking at the apple-blossom ? 
Will you come and sit beside me ? I’m lonely with 
your loneliness.” 

44 They’ll not let me stay long to-day; I’m waiting 
for the bell to ring.” 

44 You’re not left quite alone in the world, are you, 
Bennetta ? ” 

44 No. I have you, Arnold. There are people besides, 
but they do not matter to me.” 

44 Shall we really ever belong to one another, Bennetta ? 
They’ve told me not to worry about anything, but I 
can’t see how we can be married for years and years— 
and what can’t happen in a year ? Would you marry 
me to-morrow if we could see life clear before us—not 
any to-morrow, to-day’s to-morrow, before the apple- 
blossom falls ? ” 

44 1 will marry you to-morrow morning if you wish it, 
Arnold.” 

44 Thank you, Bennetta.” 

They looked in silence at birds that were breaking 
open the blossoms. 

44 Bennetta, am I well again ? ” 

44 No, dear.” 

44 Bennetta, am I going to die soon ? ” 

44 They keep telling me that you are not going to die. 
They tell me, every time I ask, that you will get better.” 

44 Then why did you say to me, 4 1 will marry you 
to-morrow,’ instead of 4 1 would,’ and when you know 
there is no help for us yet ? ” 

44 Because you know how life comes down between us 
like a knife and cuts us apart from each other. Twice 
it has done it. I’m not afraid of death dividing us ; it’s 
life that makes me afraid of getting lost from you again. 
You’re not afraid of death, are you, Arnold ? ” 

44 No, dear.” 

44 Are you afraid of life ? ” 

44 1 think I am a little. I know I am. Very easily I 
could be terrified by it- Bennetta ! Bennetta, in 



286 


HAMMER MARKS 


the morning, in the morning will you marry me, before 
the knife comes down and cuts us apart again ? What¬ 
ever is standing in the way, in the morning will- 

Why are you pressing the bell ? ” 

“ Oh, Arnold, I have undone half the good of your 
cure. In the morning, if the doctor permits, you shall 
have your wish, but rest quiet or I shall never forgive 
myself.” 

They were married on the morrow by special licence in 
the little bedroom there, which was full of sunshine for 
the occasion. The doctor gave away Bennetta and the 
matron was the one witness. Apart from the apple- 
blossom tree and the bowl of tulips and anemones, the 
wedding was not floral. A tabby kitten, playing outside 
on the sunlit window-sill, was tapping at the pane, 
asking to be let in all through the ceremony. Arnold 
did not see Bennetta again for three days after she 
kissed him as a bride. 

The quiet lull of his life in the rest-home was steadily 
musical, and more musical as peace and health returned 
to him in the following weeks, until the day when his 
wife came and took him away to bask for a week on a 
Kentish shore. All proposition for the future Bennetta 
left to her husband. She had now remaining little 
money—perhaps a hundred pounds or more—enough to 
take away the dread of winters if Arnold returned to 
his trade, as he was minded to. 

“ Birmingstow? ” said Bennetta. “ Do you want to 
get back there ? ” 

“ What’s in your own mind ? There’s one advantage 
only that I can think of at the moment; I’m known as 
a good workman in several of the shops there, but 
against that there’s disadvantages all round for you.” 

“You mean,” said Bennetta, “ that I shall be meeting 
people constantly—people I know, who will expect me 
to live up to old associations, and we can’t afford it? 
I don’t want to pick up any of the old threads. What 
do you wish ? ” 

“ I don’t wish to divorce you from your friends, 
especially as I can offer only a tame sameness.” 



APRIL 


287 


“ Being each so desirous of finding out what the 
other wants, we shall probably not find out what the 
other wants. Tell me, dear, do you want to go home 
to Birmingstow ? ” 

“ I wish never to see it again, never to hear its accent.” 

They returned to London and discovered Mrs. Triggs’s 
house in Wolfe Gardens, which was near the builder’s 
yard where Arnold obtained work. 

With the exception of Mrs. Triggs’s house and a 
private school, every house in Wolfe Gardens was given 
up to letting apartments. Mrs. Triggs was the widow 
of the man to whom the Fantail Laundry had belonged. 
She was considered to be “ well off,” not only as regarded 
her money, but also in respect to her widowhood. For 
Mr. Triggs had been ridden by a hobby which would 
have tried the gentlest woman. He had dabbled in 
mesmerism, spiritualism, the occult, and other things 
whose names Mrs. Triggs could not remember. Horo¬ 
scopes was one of them. For horoscopic purposes he 
had built upon the roof of his house an observatory, 
known as the glass-room, since walls and domes were 
made of glass. Not only could one see the tokens of 
the night sky from it, but also great patches of London. 

Possibly a less gentle woman than Mrs. Triggs would 
have broken her husband of his habits, but to herself 
she often said, “ Well, it’s better than drink.” This she 
said at least once each supper-time, when her husband 
was making weird passes with his long hands above the 
cruet before her. On principle, she would never come 
under the influence of his wifi until she had finished her 
supper and sat still a few minutes for it to digest. Then 
she would close her eyes with a smothered yawn. 

Mr. Triggs, satisfied that she was now completely 
under the influence of his will, without more ado would 
walk round the table and command her to perform such 
actions as fancy and a tender regard for his wife dictated 
to him—never alarming performances. Her part was 
easy, for he had learned that his will was not powerful 
enough to compel her to act unless he gave the spoken 
command. 


288 


HAMMER MARKS 


Only once had she made a slip. He had told her to 
rest her feet on the footstool and to remain so while he 
washed up the supper-things. He had returned with 
the tray and found the broken stool scattered over the 
hearthrug. 

“ What did you smash your Christmas present for ? ” 
he demanded. 

“ Oh, I’m sorry, Jack ; I thought you told me to 
twist the legs off the stool; only you mumble so when 
you’re tired.” 

“ Mumble when I’m tired ? Hadn’t you gone right 
off, or what was it ? ” 

She made feint to recover. “ I felt a bit drowsy 
and I thought you asked me to do something.” 

“ Mm ! ” 

The glass-room had been locked for several years when 
Arnold and Bennetta came to live in Wolfe Gardens. 
When Mr. Triggs had died, his married daughter, 
Penelope, returned to live with her mother. Penelope 
died in childbirth. Mrs. Triggs never ceased to lament 
that the child had not survived for her to cherish. She 
half decided to sell her home and live with one of her 
sons, all of whom had children, but she was loath to 
break away from her hall of recollection. She deter¬ 
mined to make one venture for satisfying her special 
need and craving for someone whom she could mother. 
She placed a card upon the window-ledge in Wolfe 
Gardens, “ Apartments.” It was this card which had 
attracted Arnold and Bennetta. 


Chapter II 


“ I have been in Bluebeard’s chamber at last. And— 
here—is—the—key.” Bennetta swung the heavy key 
upon her extended forefingers. “ Dingle—dangle, what 
hangs over your head ; lady’s or gentleman’s property ? ’ 
“ Lady’s, since it belongs to Mrs. Triggs,” responded 
Arnold, scraping round the side of a pie-dish with a 
spoon. You know I do like pudding lots better when it’s 

caught at the side a bit. Isn’t it funny-” He broke 

off until the spoon was out of his mouth again. “ Isn’t 
it funny, the worse tasting the cheese is, the better it 
tastes cooked with macaroni? When we had a tangy 
slice of cheese like this at home, mother used to smash 
it up in vinegar with a fork for me and call it mock crab. 
You don’t like crab, do you ? I don’t. It always 

strikes me as insincere. I imagine a-” 

“ Hurry up with that dish, baby; it’s the last thing 

I have to wash. And the key-” 

“ Shan’t be a minute. There’s an exquisite shell 
of crisp brown along the side, but it’s tight. I wonder 
if it would be safe to eat macaroni cheese with a spoon 
in public, or if-” 

“ What is wrong with you, Arnold, the last day or 
two ? ” 

Bennetta patted her hands dry upon the cloth she had 
been using to wipe cups and saucers with, then she hung 
it on a corner of the little folding table reserved for 
the hand-bowl, and came to him for the pudding-dish. 

Still scraping the sides of it, he allowed her to take it 
from him. “ Matter with me ? ” he exclaimed, with too 
much innocence. 

“ Matter with you,” she insisted. I want the spoon 
as well; it’s done with. Matter with you. You are 
Th 289 






290 


HAMMER MARKS 


eating next to nothing, and yet you pretend to enjoy 
your meals. To-night you scarcely touched anything 
I’d prepared, and then, when I had cleared away, 
vou began doting on the burnt side-of-the-dish. 

“ Doting ? Was I doting ? That’s lovely, Well, 
it was only so that I shouldn’t have to dry the cups and 
saucers while you washed them.” 

“ That has nothing to do with it. Why don t you 
teh me what is troubling you, dearest ? It isn’t like you 
to neglect your food—you call it food, and I don t like 
the word ; it reminds me of horses and Kipling.” 

“ Kipling says ‘ feed.’ Now I don’t say take my 

feed,’ do I ? ” 1 , 

Bennetta finished putting away the crocks on shelves 
of the corner cupboard. She came and put her hand 
in his upturned palm and brought it to her shoulder 
as she knelt at his side, her head on his lap. 

“Why do you fence off my concern, sweetheart? 


she asked. 

“ Lovers always talk nonsense.” 

“ Yes. I started the nonsense, because it’s good to 
be young when one is young. But you’ve made it an 
excuse for not eating at the end of a day s work, when 
you must be needing something to keep you going. 
I know you must be worried about something which 
you’ll not let me share ; I know, because when you are 
asleep you talk.” 

Arnold snatched away his hand and sat upright. 
“ What do I say ! I mean, what do I talk about ? ” 

“Food! Food! And that’s why I can’t bring 
myself to like the word.” 

Arnold laughed, and slipped his hand to its former 
place of caress. He began to rub the back of his hand 
along the curve of neck and shoulder, soothingly, 
intermittently. “ Nightmare following on big suppers.” 

“ Don’t cheat.” 

“ Sometimes I dream at nights. I think I m in 
Bolsover Street. I expect I always shall have occasional 
dreams of it. It costs me an effort not to think of it 
when I’m awake, let alone then. Every night I have 


APRIL 


291 


at least one dream belonging all to Bolsover Street. 
There are others, and they begin beautifully, but in the 
middle or at the end I begin to feel hunger —dream that 
I feel hungry of course ; I’m not a bit hungry actually— 
then I dream that I twist a wire round me to stop the 
hunger pain, so that the dream can go on being beautiful. 
There s nothing the matter with me, but I feel the wire 
break off sometimes and bury itself deep in just here. 
See, just here, always just here. I want to scream out, 
but I daren’t, because always I know you are close to me 
and it would frighten you if I called. Even when I’m 
asleep your love comes down to me, however deep my— 
sleep. When the scene changes too swiftly I cry out and 
frighten you. Now I’ve told you you mustn’t be 
anxious again. You’ll know that it is only a dream, 
Bennetta beloved—Bennetta beloved. It will go on 
coming to me again and again, but it will only be a 
dream—only a silly little dream that matters to nobody 
but me.” 

“ My dearest, but is it a dream ? You are trembling, 
and your forehead is burning. You say the wire always 
breaks in the same place ; there—no, just there ? 
Oh, tell me everything. Tell me everything. Let my 
love come down to you while you are waking as well as 
when you are asleep.” 

“ There isn’t anything more to tell. It’s only a dream 
which keeps coming; my fancy, my imagination. 
I shouldn’t have told you, but I was afraid of frightening 
you some night. You know how old people, when they 
dream, dream of the happy times when they were young. 
It’s the same with me ; only now that I am young I 
dream of the unhappy times when I was old. Let us 
talk nonsense again.” 

“ But-” 

Arnold picked up the ponderous key from the corner 
of the table and said, “ Dingle-dangle, what hangs over 
your head ; lady’s or gentleman’s property ? ” 

“ Gentleman’s,” said Bennetta, submissive to his 
mood, yet patient of intent. 

“ How is it a gentleman’s ? ” 



292 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ Mrs. Triggs says you can use Bluebeard’s chamber 
if you want to.” 

Bluebeard’s chamber was the name given to the 
room of glass which the late Mr. Triggs had built above 
the roof of the house. ( 

“ What shall you use it for? ” asked Arnold. lo 
dry the washing in on wet days ? ” 

“ I don’t want to use it myself. For one thing, 1 
couldn’t climb up that iron ladder flat against the wall, 
not without some urgent prompting.” 

“ What was the urging prompting to-day ? ” „ 

“ Curiosity. I wanted to see what it looked like. 

“ What was in it ? ” „ 

“ Nothing—but dust; it hasn’t been used for years. 

“ What did it look like ? ” 

“ A studio ! ” 

“ O—h ! I see what you are getting at, and again 
and always again I shall say, No! No! No, Mrs. Brooke, 
you married an artisan and not an artist. If you like to, 
I’ve no objection to you considering yourself the 
artist’s widow, for Arnold Brooke, the artist, died of a 
broken palette-stick some time ago; but as the artist s 
wife, no ! ” 

“ Did I say I wanted you to take to art again ? 

“ Yes, you did—in woman’s language. I can’t speak 
it, but I can read it. Aren’t you always impelling me 
toward art again, not knowing that when an artist 
dies, he dies ? Art is not golf. And he would take some 
reviving, that artist, for there was a cremation, and the 
ashes scattered to the four winds of hell. Sorry. 
Aren’t you always impelling me toward art ? Nigh every 
Saturday you drag me to a picture exhibition by the 
scruff of my kindness, forgetting that people who are 
clever enough and content to criticise art are the people 
who could not create. Think of Birmingstow, Mrs. 
Brooke. Aren’t you always getting me to talk art and 
to talk art and to talky, talky-talk art, forgetting that 
the people who talky-talk art are the ones who know 
blowall about it ? Remember Birmingstow. Aren’t you 
always-” 



APRIL 


293 


“ Very well, then, Mr. Brooke ; you, being in case 
armour, need not fear my puny attacks. Get a candle, 
and we will go and look at the studio.” 

“ I shall not. It’s no use kissing me ; I shall stop 
where I am.” 

“ Have it your own way, then. I will get the candle, 
and we will go and see Bluebeard’s chamber.” 

“ That’s better; spoken like a woman.” Arnold 
struck a match and lit the candle which Bennetta had 
brought from the bedroom. “ Bid you have much 
trouble in getting Mrs. Triggs to let you see the room ? ” 

“ None at all.” I simply told her that my husband 
was really an artist—a landscape artist—only he had to 
work in the building trade as the fine arts were so 
unremunerative. She didn’t show surprise, but-” 

' C)h, you did, did you ? ” said Arnold, blowing out 
the candle-flame. 

“ Oh, Arnold, and we are short of matches.” 

“ Don’t matter; we shall not want the candle again.” 

“ Why not ? ” 

“ I’ve been running up and down ladders painting 
spouting all day, and I don’t think I could climb another 
rung. I don’t think I could face that iron ‘ Jacob ’ up 
to the studio—er—blow !—Bluebeard’s chamber, for 
wealth untold. I simply haven’t the energy. 

“I’m sorry, Arnold.” 

“ And I’m tired, Bennetta.” 

“You wouldn’t let me finish what I was saying about 
Mrs. Triggs. I ended by telling her that you’d decided 
never to paint another picture in your life, because it 
appeared that the labourer is worthy of his hire, but 
the artist is not.” 

“ I suppose the subtlety of that was lost on Mrs. 
Triggs ? ” said Arnold, refighting the candle. 

“I’m not quite sure ; she said there were artists and 
artists.” 

“ Bless her old heart, I begin to love that woman,” 
said Arnold, with a chuckle. “ But don’t you feel it’s 
too much for you to climb that awkward ladder again, 
dear ? ” 



294 


HAMMER MARKS 


“You can help me. You’re so big. There are 
wonderful views all round. I did so wish you were with 
me this afternoon to see them. You know that impulse 
to share which comes when you are looking at something 
which is so beautiful that it is intolerable. You feel 
that the thrill and joy is almost too much for one alone. 
You want someone appreciative with you, and then the 
joy is doubled and the beauty possible to bear. All 
lovely things make me wish that you were with me.” 

Arnold kissed Bennetta. They were walking up to the 
top landing. “ If the beauty of anything moves me 
deeply,” he said, “ I too feel that longing to share, except 
in the case of music. Then I want no one to be near 
me, and no one to ever hear afterwards what I am 
listening to ; often I hate the musician who is playing, 
because he seems to be robbing me while he gives, in that 
he is sharing what I want all for myself. Sometimes I 
think that music is the greatest of the arts because it is 
most like life, most like the essence of life. Both impinge 
against the soul; be beautiful while they are dreaded 
those shuddery chords in ‘ Valse Triste ’ ! I hate 
anyone who is near me while they are being played. 
I hate the music itself, and yet I want that part to be 
played over and over again. I dread, yet long to feel 
the hand which clasps and unclasps, and fumbles and 
feels about my heart while the music is being played. 
It’s like life—like my life—that particular theme in 
* Valse Triste.’ ” 

They were standing at the foot of the iron ladder. 

“Bennetta,” he continued, “you’ve changed my 
mood. Don’t let us talk nonsense any more to-night. 
I’ll go first to open the trap-door and show the fight. 
I’ll reach my hand to you.” 

They stood together on the floor of the glass-room. 
“ Shall I blow out the fight ? ” said Arnold. 

“ We shall see well enough,” said Bennetta, as she 
tweaked the candle-wick. 

The sticks of the glass-room were so slight that it 
seemed they stood on a flat roof above the town. The 
raiment of the night was round them. Every stud 


APRIL 


295 


upon the wimple of the night sky glittered ; every string 
of gems that laced the nearer furbelows of the embroid¬ 
ered city shone ; its distant hem was powdered with 
seed pearls which glowed with a loveliness surpassing 
frills of fire. 

“ Was it even more beautiful by day ? ” whispered 
Arnold. 

“ I can’t tell; you weren’t with me then.” 

He put his arm round her shoulder, with the gentle 
roughness of the lover like. They stood in silence, and 
let London be to them, as it has been to so many, a 
green countryside for witchery ; a mountain range in* 
its challenge to quicken forlorn hopes ; a silent tarn 
for mystery, a desert in its crowded vastness—the prince 
of cities in itself. 

“ You have a fine name,” said Bennetta, as if she had 
been engaged with thought and not entranced by the 
beauty of London. 

“ Were you addressing the city or me? ” asked 
Arnold. 

“ I meant you.” 

“ You queer creature, what has my name got to do 
with all this fiery spider-web we are looking at ? 

“ Nothing. I simply said I liked it as a, name. 
Arnold—strong as an eagle ; Brooke—to bear.” 

He moved suspiciously. He had a great secret which he 
wished to keep from her, and he believed that she had 
either guessed it or was making it easy for him to tell her 
of it. Her words seemed to have no connection with 
anything but his secret, and why had she spoken them 
if she was not moving towards some point, tortuously, 
but swift ? The surest way to win confidence was to be 
the woman one loved \ therefore he supposed he would 
have to tell her. 

“What made you say that?” he asked, gruffly. 
“ That I have been given a name which says that I am 
strong, but—strong to bear affliction ? 

“ Nothing ; it came into my mind. I was looking 
through the back of the dictionary this morning for 
a name that went well with Brooke. That was all. 


296 


HAMMER MARKS 


I rather like Aleck Brooke—one who helps men to bear.” 

“ Why did you look for a name ? ” 

“ We’re going to have a child, and it may be a son.” 

“When? ” 

“ April, perhaps. Aren’t you ready for my news ? ” 

“ Not a bit. I didn’t think of it yet.” 

“ Aren’t you glad ? ” 

“ Glad ! Glad ? It makes all the difference in the 
world,” exclaimed Arnold, about to behave fondly, but 
he stopped abruptly. “ You shouldn’t have come up 
that iron ladder. You know Mrs. Triggs can’t climb it. 
You mustn’t come up here again.” 

“ Silly Billy,” laughed Bennetta. “ I shall not come 
here again. But I did want to show you your studio.” 

“ I shall never need a studio, Bennetta.” 

“ It won’t be long before you start on new pictures.” 

“ Don’t ask me like that, dearest.” 

“ But you will begin to paint again soon, won’t 
you ? ” 

“ It would mean leaving you alone so much.” 

“Then you have decided to start. I shall love to 
know that I am left alone for such a cause.” 

“ I can’t, Bennetta. There is so much that I have to 
take into consideration.” 

“ There’s nothing that I haven’t considered. Look 
at your view all round ; could you ask for a better 
scene series than that? Always before you. No one 
but yourself will ever come up here.” 

“It is coincidence ; you know I believe in coinci¬ 
dences.” 

“ This is not coincidence ; I searched half London for 
a place like this when we were house-hunting, and 
before, when you were in the nursing-home. Once, 
long ago, when we were happy before, if you remember, 
I told you that I too served art. I can’t create, but I 
can encourage, even if I can’t inspire. I can’t serve at 
the high altar, but I can trim the lamps. In this, my 
service to art, I am earnest as you were once in your 
service. Don’t let me also know what it is to fail. 
The organ-blower who can only serve by pulling a 


APRIL 


297 


lever up and down can be as earnest for art as the 
artist who is playing ; he who is pulling out the stops 
and striking the chords may be only winning fame ; 
working only for fame, and knowing no shame in it. 
To me that’s just as despicable as using an art merely 
to get money, or respect, or friendships. Don’t despise 
my claim ; art can’t do without organ-blowers, Arnold. 
I don’t want you to begin to paint just to please me ; 
I want you to start because you were made for that. 
You were born an artist.” 

“ You wouldn’t speak like that, Bennetta, if you had 
known what I have. You wouldn’t speak slightingly 
of the artist who wants a little fame, a little money, a 
little friendship, and all respect, if you had been as I 
have—outcast because I was an artist; starved because, 
being an artist, I haven’t the business instinct; insulted 
by open gibe and covert sneer because I loved things which 
the people about me thought imbecilic. If men and 
women had smiled and giggled when they discovered that 
you considered yourself an artist, you would not grow 
bitter, grudging respect to the artist whom the mob do 
not understand although he understands them too well: 
you would hunger for a little respect; you would want 
men to turn away their eyes whenever by accident they 
found that you were bleeding. I can’t go back to art. 
I can only go on asking God to make me more and 
more like other men. See, all that I want, Bennetta, 
is just for you to love me and me to go on loving you ; 
to be able to keep my work and make a decent home for 
us ; and to have healthy little children who will not 
know if the sparrow is less beautiful than the wren. 
See, all that I want is to be like any other man who was 
born in a back street of Birmingstow—and I can’t. 
I’m cursed ; I can refuse to touch a pencil and never 
create, but that doesn’t stop me being an artist; there’s 
no second wind. Oh, beloved, don’t help me with a 
single touch to stretch myself upon the altar—not 
now, just when I see how good it is to be just an ordinary 
working man, with a wife and a home and the hope of a 


298 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ I know, I know,” said Bennetta. “ The artist is 
given all beautiful feathers and no spurs, no talons, 
like the birds which are all beauty and cannot defend 
themselves. It’s part of the scheme of nature. I 
know that we suffer by reason of the best in us. But 
you will not disappoint God. You were made an 
artist for some secret purpose of His ; you were born 
in a slum to interpret Him there. You will begin to 
paint again soon, Arnold, won’t you ? ” 

He leaned against the window-ledge and passed his 
hand across his eyes, as if to sweep away the gloom and 
ghtter of the entrancing night, that he might see in the 
round the full idea which was presenting itself vaguely 
before him. 

Arnold Brooke knew that he was to die before April; 
to die, moreover, a terrible death. He was feeding 
an internal cancer. He had been unable to tell Bennetta 
before this ; and now ! How could he tell her now ? 

Was the history of his own birth going to be repeated ? 
His father had developed similar growth at such a 
time ; his mother’s heart had not broken when she 
learned the truth ; she had not given way to melan- 
choha, but Arnold had never known her smile, and her 
smile must have been a very sweet expression when she 
was young \ perhaps as sweet as Bennetta s smile. 
More tragic stiff, he had never but once known her 
weep. Was Bennetta also to go through the years 
without capacity to smile or weep again ; living frozen 
in love ? 

And the child that was to be born in April, was it 
indeed to be his son in every particular of life as well as 
birth? Was it to have his own childhood—the boy 
who could not play ; to have his own mockery of youth, 
his own early manhood which was like a great, bright- 
hearted rose growing at the end of a gaunt branch, and 
within the blossom and against it a clump of rose-gall 
living upon it ? 

And for himself, Bennetta’s husband, what ? In six 
months he would be dead, out of it, and the question 
not concerning him. Yes, but what about Bennetta 


APRIL 


299 


and the new Arnold Brooke that would he in her lap ? 
Would it be Arnold—strong to bear, or Aleck—helping 
others to bear ? It would be Aleck if he could find 
means to hide his tragedy from Bennetta until after 
April. She would have to know in April, in the perilous 
time immediately after his son was born ; but that way 
his son at least would be saved—be Aleck and not 
Arnold. That must be the way. 

Which way ? He had not found a way; he would 
be buried before the child was born. No ! No, he 
would not! That was one thing he must get into his 
mind, clear and solid—a fixed thought to nail to. He 
would not die before the child was born ; he would 
defy God and death till after then. He would brace 
himself in the strong will which his mother had given 
him and comfort himself with the patience in pain which 
he had inherited from his father. And love would 
help him—his love for Bennetta and Bennetta’s love 
for him. He would live till April. 

He had not advanced so far as this towards a solution 
before. He had thought wild, disastrous things—that 
he would desert Bennetta without explanation, trusting 
to her forgetting him in the years to be ; desert her and 
die in some hole where he would not be found. How 
often during these last few days had he longed for that 
little, secret room in Bolsover Street. But he could 
not desert Bennetta, nor even take his life, without 
breaking her heart. One thing he would not do ; he 
would not have operation after operation to delay and 
prolong the agony. If Bennetta discovered his secret 
she would insist on this delaying and delaying, and it 
would do no good. He knew that she would not weep ; 
she would keep a little fantastic smile always ready for 
him when he should look at her, and then, afterwards, 
she would never have a smile for her baby, the child 
who could not play. She must not know. He must 
live till April, and she must not know how . 

She must not know. How could he hide if from her ? 
What was this nebulous idea which she had sent floating 
across his brain ? Why would it not cool and harden 


300 


HAMMER MARKS 


to the solid idea ? There was a way to hide his tragedy— 
as sure a way as if he were living alone in Bolsover 
Street. In an instant—if she did not speak to him— 
he would be able to print the idea on his mind. He 
wanted some way of escape, some plausible, natural 
way of escape from her presence when he could not 
bear the acute pain. He wanted some place to escape 
to, some place where none other, least of all she, could 
follow. Here was his sanctuary—the studio! His 
excuse to escape was here ; art! A big picture could 
be expected to take six months. He could leave 
Bennetta at any time, as often as the pain forced him 
from her side, saying that he was in the mood to paint. 
His moods ! His moods—they would come often. 
His moods ; what hells to bear, to bear alone ! Be 
strong to bear for sake of love : Arnold Brooke. 

H is daily work would have to be gone on with. 
In that, at any rate, he would not need to be a chaff- 
wax ; he did not care what the workmen thought. 
It was October now ; it was almost the winter season, 
when there would be no work for him to have. 

“ You’re a long time answering me, Arnold,” said 
Bennetta quietly, at length. 

“ It is a coincidence, Bennetta,” said Arnold. “ I 
could have found a way without coincidence, yet I will 
fall in with the fact that life is like life.” 

“ You will begin on a picture soon ? ” asked Bennetta. 

“ A rather ambitious picture, Bennetta. I will buy 
three or four canvases and work them one in with the 
others, according to the light and the weather. I will 
have the big one a night scene. I will get an easel and 
paints and everything I want on Saturday. You must 
not want to see any results before—Aleck is born. I 
want to do a big and ambitious piece of work.” 

“You have made me very happy, dearest,” said 
Bennetta. “ I don’t care if I never see your pictures ; 
there was another reason why I wanted you to return to 
art. It is because your life would be so very, very 
empty without it if anything goes wrong with me in 
April and you are left here—alone.” 


Chapter III 


“ So,” said Arnold, wearily fastening the last button 
of his coat and pulling the collar of it straight, “ it was 
foolish of me and idle to come to you, after my own 
doctor had taken me to a consulting physician who 
corroborated his opinion that I had a cancer ? ” 

“ I shall not agree with you quite,” said Dr. Pinfold. 
“You came to me, shall we say, not as clutching at a 
vain straw of hope that both were wrong, but, rather, 
you wanted me to verify the points which your first 
doctor made to fortify you ? That is it, isn’t it ? You 
didn’t come expecting me to give a different diagnosis ? ” 
“ You’re right, doctor ; I wanted to be sure of my 
ground ; and you verify all my first doctor’s statements.” 

“ Yes, I do, as you set them forth. You have made 
a clean breast of your intentions, and I agree—mind 
you, I am not speaking professionally in this—that no 
good purpose would be served by operations prolonging 
intermittently your sufferings. You can five till April; 
I verify that.” 

“ Your next special concern,” he went on. “ Can 
you hide your disease from those in close association 
with you ? You could. You could hide the fact that 
you were suffering from a malignant growth. Of course, 
later, it will be patent to anyone in my profession, but 
even your intimates need not recognise what the trouble 
is. The thing is internal, and you have the excuse of 
what is always a worrying time to account for you looking 
run down. I can answer for this ; you can cover your 
disease ; whether you will I do not know.” 

The doctor was given to making a mental shrug, 
although it was never betrayed by more than an arresting 
of his facial expression, and, if he was standing, by 
301 


302 


HAMMER MARKS 


bringing his heels together, which took him a step 
back. He did it now, as if he had discovered that 
Arnold was emotionally an idiot, however he girt 
himself with his intelligence. 

Arnold flicked his glance away from the doctor s 
direction as he answered, “ If I can, and you say I can, 
I shall.” 

The doctor sat down, crossing his knees and resting 
his hands upon the round of his thigh, one hand upon 
the other. Arnold watched the broad hands, passive 
in their dormant courage and skill which was habit, 
habit which was skill. A doctor’s hands are the most 
human things in creation. Arnold remembered the 
precise touch of them ; the brusqueness which was 
compassion, the gentleness which was watchful care, 
the lack of tenderness which was tender. Idle, they 
were as any other quiet hands, unless there was a 
greater reticence in their indifference. 

To the musician, his ear ; to the artist, his eye ; 
to the doctor, his finger-tips. Arnold, who had ever 
been grateful to his Creator for a body which recorded 
faithfully and instantly in his brain every sensation, 
degree, and shade of sensation, which touched or passed 
on to it, suspected how choice and rare must be the 
grave thrill of ecstasy sent to the brain of a doctor from 
his finger-tips when they touched in wisdom on the 
solution of a mystery which had intrigued their 
finesse. 

The musician, when he drops his hands from striking 
the final chord of a new symphony and hears it ringing 
in his memory ; the painter who lays the last petal of 
paint upon his picture and stands back to view it as a 
whole ; the doctor who rests his responsive touch upon a 
responsiveness which is ready to cry out its secret to 
him ; the three are artists one. Such difference as there 
is lies but in period—past, present, or future. Musician, 
painter, physician ; for the ear, its artist; to sight, 
its artist; to the touch, its artist also. 

Without interlude for rearrangement of things he 
was long prone to believe, Arnold had but one thought 


APRIL 


303 


as he looked at the broad, tranquil hands, and remem¬ 
bered that they were the understudies of the doctor’s 
brain. “ That readiness of my flesh to communicate 
vividly with my brain can do devil’s work in the time 
that is coming to me—to me, an artist. An artist! 
And they call an artist an artist because of what he 
produces, and not because of what he feels.” 

Dr. Pinfold put his hand in his pocket as he said, 
“ What you have felt so far is an intimation. You’re 
not underestimating what you have to go through, nor 
overestimating your courage ? ” 

Arnold shook his head. “ I know it will be a terrible 
death especially for me, having dreaded it all my life. 
Before I was born the terribleness of such a fate was 
knit in with my nature ; terror of cancer is part of my 
soul. I do not underestimate that; I know it will be 
terrible.” 

Dr. Pinfold was the least embarrassing of men ; his 
eyes looked directly at a man who wished to meet his 
glance ; but he looked elsewhere if the man was restive 
or churlish. Arnold kept his glance for a second longer 
as he asked with troubled uncertainty, “ Shall I 
have pain continually, or will it be at intervals, as 
now ? ” 

“ Continually towards the end—the last two or three 
months.” 

“ Thank you.” 

“ Is your own doctor treating you to relieve you 
somewhat of pain? ” 

“ He gives me morphia.” 

Dr. Pinfold pushed back his chair and stood up and 
opened the door for Arnold. His handshake was glowing 
and generous, although it was but a clasping and un¬ 
clasping, without significant or noticeable pause. It was 
almost casual, yet it reminded Arnold that in all his 
years he had never made a friend. 

“ If I did have a friend, I don’t expect I should know 
what to do with him; I’m just the boy who couldn’t 
play grown up,” he thought as he walked to Wolfe 
Gardens near by. He had chosen to go to a doctor 


304 


HAMMER MARKS 


whose practice was so near his home so that a post¬ 
mortem enquiry should be avoided in the event of his 
death appearing to be too sudden to be natural. “ Still, 
it must be one of the grand things of life to have a 
friend. What wouldn’t it be worth to me to have a 
friend whom I could talk to at such a time as is coming— 
say a friend who is worse off than me, one who had 
something to face and hadn’t any courage. It was ill 
enough to lack a playmate ; but, most said and done, a 
playmate for a boy is only someone to share his pleasures; 
but later friendships as I saw them were stepping-stones 
across the Brook of Life where it is narrow and sparkling 
in youth. And now, when the river is widest, a friend— 
it’s an often-spoken word so a tame word, but a 
friend would be someone you could put your arm to 
when the river is beating harder on him, or who would 
put his arm to you when you were taking the shocks. 
It must be one of the most wonderful things to have a 
friend like that—a man who could break your heart, 
but wouldn’t; a man whose heart you could break, 
but wouldn’t. 

“ What wouldn’t a friend mean to me ’twixt now and 
April I I suppose there is a plan for the life of each of us, 
and there is a reason why there is no post, no lintel of 
friendship set down on mine. Now that I look at it, it 
is better that I have no friend. It would be someone 
else to be sad for me in April.” 

He took the house door key from his pocket and began 
to whistle as he put it in the keyhole. He hummed a 
song of golden-chain and lilac as he went up the stairs. 
Just before he opened the door of his sitting-room he 
let a smile grow restless on his face to as far as his eyes ; 
when he actually opened the door he forced his eyes to 
smile, in case Bennetta had returned early from shopping. 
Bennetta had not returned, and he ceased to sing softly 
of golden-chain and lilac and reserved the smile for 
another time. 

He sat in the bay window. A newspaper lay upon the 
floor. It was a page of a Birmingstow newspaper which 
Bennetta had bought. He did not stoop to pick it up, 


APRIL 


305 


but he leaned forward to look at the jumble of illustra¬ 
tions upon the open page. James Frankfort, the well- 
known Birmingstow artist, had presented a picture of 
Newn Street to the city. An old favourite of Arnold’s 
had been taken down in the Art Gallery to make room 
for the latest addition. The newspaper reproduced the 
new picture. It was a clever picture. Arnold, casually 
though he looked at it, admitted that it was clever. 
Several influential and important citizens of Birmingstow 
filled up the foreground, their feet on the bottom of the 
frame, their top hats touching the top. It was clever ; 
anyone who knew Birmingstow at all could easily 
recognise all of them, and the bits of the famous 
thoroughfare between bent elbows and behind their 
ears : “ Spy ” himself could not have done the thing 
better. 

Another successful Birmingstow artist was offering 
a picture and he had his photograph on the same page. 
He was seen at his easel, in his studio, holding a palette 
and brushes, and gazing upward. Arnold nodded to it 
and said, “ There, but for the grace of God, go I, Arnold 
Brooke.” 

The sight of the photograph seemed to have cheered 
him a little. He put a cushion behind his head, and 
leaning back, looked to the sky as he let his mind go back 
to a thought he had touched and neglected as he walked 
home. 

“ I should say that there is a plan made out for the 
life of each of us. My plan ? Umph.” 

He stared at the sky for a long while, then he changed 
his position, stooped down where he sat, and after 
pulling his slippers towards him began to unlace his 
shoes. He stopped with the lace pulled forward, 
taut. 

“ That is the plan of my life. Let me go over it in 
different ways ; measure the job up different ways and 
see if it’s the same each time.” 

“ An artist does not faint a masterpiece by inspiration 
alone. First he has the talent, then he studies the work of 
the masters, then he works on small pictures and studies, 
Uh 


306 HAMMER MARKS 

slight but good in their way. Then he has the inspiration 
when he is master of technique and so—a masterpiece. 
He proves himself artist. All his life has been preparation 
for that one painting. 

“ Let me keep to this A.B.C. simplicity and I shall 
trace the lines of what few men ever even see ; the plan 

of their lives. . . . 

“ An author does not write a masterpiece by inspiration 
alone. First he is given the talent, then he reads and 
grows conversant with the masters, then he begins to turn 
out little poems, little stories, a long story, perhaps a novel ; 
all of them slight things comparatively : then he has the 
inspiration when he is master of technique and so—a 
masterpiece. He proves himself artist. From when he 
had the talent before he was born, all his life itself has been 
preparation for that one book. 

“ Sounds like instruction for writing nursery rhymes 
or how the five finger exercise was composed in a single 
night. Wait Arnold, you may be one of those artists 
who are only artists when they cease to attempt the 
artistic and- Stick to the childish simplicity, you 

fool 1 ” 7 7 . . . 

“ Some men are artists although they never paint a 
picture, sing a song, nor tell a story, never dance nor tune 
an instrument: they live their art instead. I am not one 
of those. Oh, wield the knotted knout. No ! 

“ It’s slipping from me—but no ! A masterpiece , 
a life of preparation, an artist. That s it; but the other 
way round. 

“ Stick to your nursery rhyme vocabulary, it very 
word rubbed off the dictionary is a chess piece taken by 
art from stupidity ; three syllable words are bishops ; 

four syl- You are getting elaborate again. If you 

want to think as God thought when he drew your plan 
up, think in His limited language. He thinks in a 
vocabulary of one word ; ‘ Love.’ Pretty ; but I don t 
believe it. Anything to throw me off what I’m getting 
at. I’m too jaded to think. Come back to the A.B.C. 

effect.” . , , 

“ I am an artist who has not made a masterpiece, yet 






APRIL 


307 


I am an artist. I shall never paint a masterpiece, nor is 
my life a masterpiece ; yet I am an artist .” 

“ What then ? My masterpiece will he the manner of 
my death” 

“ What then ? Have I invented a new art, no, it is 
as old as- Side track : go back to plan.” 

“The idea of my death is an inspiration.” 

‘ An artist does not create a masterpiece by inspiration 
alone.” 

“First he is given the talent. I was given the talent 
to die as I shall die. It was given me before I had proper 
eyes or ears to follow any other art. It was given me before 
I was born. It was made sure of in RUDYARD 
STREET.” 

“ Next, he studies the work of a master. I had that 
privilege in CHAPEL GROVE. My mother lived on 
after she was dead because she knew subconsciously that 
someone whom she loved needed her.” 

“ Next he practises his art, turning out a lesser work 
than which will content. Have I not turned out something 
to the credit of any genius of death. Was there not 
BOLSOVER STREET?” 

“ Comes the inspiration, now that I am the master of 
technique. And so—my masterpiece. I shall prove 
myself artist. Before I was born, and all my life was 
preparation for this one -” 

The bootlace snapped. 

He shuffled his boots off and eased his toes into his 
slippers. He listened, and went to open the door for 
Bennetta. 

“ Hello, Ben, tired ? ” he exclaimed. “ What you 
brought for to-morrow’s dinner ? Looks like a bunny.” 

“ ’Tis a bunny. Not a bit tired. Shouldn’t have 
gone if I was likely to be. Mrs. Triggs would have run 
twice round London if I wanted her to now that she 
knows for sure that she is going to have a baby to nurse. 
Still, sweetheart, I don’t mind being back with you ; 
you have always got such a whimsical smile tucked away 
in your waistcoat pocket ready for when I come in.” 

“ Ow, the bunny wabbit is sticky, it come through 




308 


HAMMER MARKS 


the paper, Ow, ogh,” said Arnold, who had taken the 
bag “ I’ve got an opera cloak for bunny’s slim young 
shoulders,” He picked up the newspaper which had 
prompted his thoughts, and dropped the rabbit into it. 
“You have not read that yet, have you ? warned 

Bennetta. . , , 

“ No, but it has served its spiritual purpose ; it might 
as well now perform its utilitarian purposes. 

“ You are saying some peculiar things lately. What 
did you mean by saying that it had served its spiritual 

purpose ? ” . , , T i 

“ I meant what I am always meamng ; that 1 love 
my Bennetta, that I love my Bennetta. If I say that 
the sky looks green when you say it is blue , if I say 
the room is cold when you say it is hot, if I kiss your 
sleeve instead of your dear lips because I am afraid of 
the baby being born with a big red moustache like 
mine—it is red for my age, isn’t it—Whatever I say, it 
only means one thing put in different ways, and that, 
I love my Bennetta, I love my Bennetta.” 

“ I don’t like to hear you talk like a mystic with a 
nervous breakdown, old boy, I don’t. You are not. 
looking well, either. Don’t talk any more folly, 
Arnold ; be a dear.” 

“ Yes, a man is a fool who speaks wisdom which only 
he himself can comprehend.” 


Chapter IV 


It was April. Nearly every house in London had 
capitulated to spring and bought a bunch of daffodils. 
Like besoms on which were twists of tissue paper from 
boxed oranges, dead daffodils remained in jam-jars on 
window-ledges of the slums. In suburban homes 
swelled bundles of double trumpets, seeking with 
greater pomp to compensate for not being in the first 
rush of beauty when the flowers came with rapturous 
newness to town. White narcissi, being slightly more 
expensive and fewer to the bunch, were in fla ts and 
rooms which contained glass vases to hold them. In 
West End mansions there was the flaming of r oses and 
the hanging silver vinaigrettes of white lilac—but all 
that was quite a different thing to the daffod ils spread 
up and down London in rooms whic h they made 
strangely disturbing with their winsomeness, and in 
otherwise evil rooms which they mocked instead of 
brightening. It was April. It was April, and the city, 
faithful to her secret faith in ideals, tried to buy—to 
grasp a little reality of the unreality of spring bv 
buying daffodils. 

There was a mystic once—he was also a poet—and 
on an April he watched London make endeavour to 
grasp the fugitive transience of spring by buying narcissi. 
He had a little song to write. He was limited to eight 
fines, as the song was only to fill in a space at the bottom 
°f ar * article on railways. He had but one day to 
write it in, as the magazine went to Press on the morrow. 
He had sixpence in his pocket, and was so hungry that 
his soul could not find voice to sing the little song to 
order. He had sixpence in his pocket; he could do 
one of three things—could eat and get strength enough 
309 


310 


HAMMER MARKS 


for eight lines ; he could buy cigarettes and so disperse 
his hunger and get solace enough for eight lines be 
could buy a bundle of daffodils and get inspiration 
sufficient "for eight lines and a title. He bought the 
flowers. He had not a room to take them to but he 
knew of a dark corner under Adelphi Arches where he 
used to hide and wait to see the face of a great playwright 
who let himself in and out of a doorway there, ihe 
mystic, who was young and feeble, took the daffodils 
there. In the under-tower-of-London gloom and 
mystery of the arches he put the flowers in a corner, 
stood them up against the stonework, and knelt to 
regard them. He ran his fingers up the shining stems 
which caught the light where they were fluted Eight 
short lines. He put his face right among the flowers 
and let their water-spots be tears upon his cheeks and 
lips. He breathed their scent, faint but sacred. He 
tried to sing his little eight-lined song. He could not. 
He could not . He could not sing ; he had touched the 
flowers and they had ceased to be illusive. They were 
his * they belonged to him, to crush or to keep ; they 
were something concrete. When he had beheld them 
first they were as inexplicable as spring itself ; now that 
he owned them and felt their substance they were 
nothing but yellow flowers—nothing but a waste of 


And so it was with London. She saw the miracle in 
spring seeming impossible even while it was telling its 
romance in its opening chapters. She tried to grasp 
its wayword spirit by snatching at its semblance, icund 
the things she held were concrete, and doubted if the 
spring itself was wonderful, even while it told its romance 
in its opening days. 

And so it was with Arnold. 

It was April, and still he lived. When first the idea 
of living secretly his tragedy had come to him, it seemed 
only possible for him to live his secret struggle by a 
miracle ; it seemed that the miracle would be as inexplic¬ 
able as the miracle of spring. Now that it was April 
and he had achieved his purpose, he looked back and 


APRIL 


311 


doubted if his achievement was in anything approaching 
a masterpiece. It had been a display of physical 
endurance ; a prolonged and fearful effort; terrible— 
yes, it had been terrible, but now that it was the end, 
and there could not be many more minutes of life left 
to him, it did not seem to prove that he was an artist. 
And in hundreds of shabby rooms in London there were 
people wondering why they had spent sixpence on 
daffodils which now were ready to be thrown away. 

He dragged his limbs round the studio, finding the 
pen in one place, the ink in another, and the paper— 
oh, there was paper on the table beside the camp bed. 

He sprawled on the bed, and tilted the table to serve 
as a desk. The ink would not flow from the pen in that 
position. He rolled up and half lay on the table to 
write his only love-letter—the first; the last. 

It would not matter how he wrote so long as he got it 
done and made things plain enough. 


“ April, 1912. 

“ Bennetta Beeoved, —Dr. Pinfold will explain 
everything and avoid a post-mortem. 

“ Bennetta, you have been the only one to love me 
or be loved by me with the exception of my mother. 

“ I do not know how you and the son will five, or 
what you will live on, but that does not mean I do 
not love you. I do love you, only there are no words 
that mean much which will come to me. Perhaps I 
shall be able to tell you when we meet. 

“ Your loving husband, 

“Arnoed ” 

He pushed the ink to the side of the wall in case he 
should not lie still and so spill it. But he lay still. 

The room was bright, very bright, with sunshine. 
In the corner farthest from his bed were the canvases, 
the easel, the paint-boxes and tools of his forgone art. 
They had not been unwrapped from the paper or packing 
in which they had been bought. 

He remained very still. The fight began to falter, as 


312 


HAMMER MARKS 


if afraid to leave him to himself, but yet afraid to stay. 
He would have chosen to die in the sunlight, but it could 
not be helped. An hour passed. 

Although it was still light in the studio, in the lower 
portion of the house the hint of darkness told of evening, 
and each aspect of each room looked like a soiled print. 

Mrs. Triggs lit the gas in the room where the infant 
nestled on Bennetta’s breast. Mrs. Triggs was the 
most motherly of all her sex—the mother sex. When 
her children had grown up she did not cease to mother 
them. When they married and left her roof she 
mothered her husband, and when he too had left from 
beneath her roof, Penelope had possessed her life. 
Penelope, so soon to go, should have warned her not to 
give devotion quite so absolute to any earthborn again. 
But in the few weeks prior to Arnold’s and Bennetta’s 
advent into Wolfe Gardens she had often watched from 
her window the children playing in the square, seeing 
in them her own little children again. She had decided 
not to go to the home of any one of her sons, because 
she mothered them all so desperately in her heart that 
she could not decide which ones to neglect for a favourite, 
and they all had children, and none of them really 
needed her. She had held out her heart to Bennetta as 
soon as she saw her, and Bennetta had gone into that 
stronghold of motherly love and had pulled the door to 
quietly after her. 

Bennetta had wanted to be there so much from the 
moment she saw the soft-lined face, with its entreating 
yet assuring eyes. Bennetta had wanted, not only 
affection, but also the advice of a woman who had once 
been poor and “ had to make both ends meet,” and she 
had laid herself open to Mrs. Triggs’s unstinted motherli¬ 
ness, and had found it something like a warm June day. 
It was with contented amusement that she observed 
Mrs. Triggs show signs that she regarded the child coming 
to the house as belonging to her rather than Bennetta. 

Mrs. Triggs had a power by which she was wont to 
refresh herself. Under stress of great emotion, great 
happiness, or great woe, she could cry in absolute silence, 


APRIL 


313 


so that no one could know unless they looked very 
closely at her. She was weeping thus now as she lit 
the gas and lowered the blinds. Bennetta’s doctor, 
Dr. Rainsford, was also in the room, seated by the bed. 
The child was nigh on three hours old, but he still 
stayed. 

“ Mother,” said Bennetta, with quietness. 

“ Yes, poor lamb,” said Mrs. Triggs. 

“You may take my son now.” 

“He is my sonny, is he, now? ” asked the woman 
with the great heart. 

“ Be good to him when I cannot have him,” said 
Bennetta. 

“ He shall always be the first thought in my heart.” 

Bennetta smiled. “ Hold him for me to kiss, mother.” 

Mrs. Triggs closed her eyes when she had lowered the 
morsel of life to his mother’s lips. It might have been 
jealousy that caused the expression on her face; it was 
not. 

Bennetta, without turning her head, said, when the 
infant had been carried from the room, “ Doctor, I want 
to see my husband.” 

Dr. Rainsford did not rise. He leaned forward and 
laid his fingers on the slow pulse while he slipped his 
watch from his pocket. 

“ Will you bring him to me now ? ” 

“ I had better wait until Mrs. Triggs is with you.” 

“ Will you bring my husband ? I want to see him 
now, doctor.” 

“ I think it would be better if Mrs. Triggs was with 
you.” 

“ Call him from the doorway. He will come.” 

“ I don’t think so. I expect that I shall have to go 
up to the studio for him. I called him at the foot of 
the ladder a quarter of an hour ago and he did not 
answer. I expect he was sleeping.” 

“ Yes, he must be tired out. He was up all night. 
He must have fallen into a dead sleep. Will you go up 
the ladder to him ? He will come if you tell him I need 
him. Say ‘ Bennetta needs you.’ ” 


314 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ I don’t wish you to be alone, that is all.” 

“ Doctor.” 

“ Yes ? ” 

“ I am growing frightened.” 

“ I will go for him now.” 

“You will leave us alone together when he comes, 
doctor ? ” 

“ Yes—when he comes.” 

She turned her eyes towards the door. It was a white 
enamelled door turned to ivory. The paper surrounding 
it was fair with pale roses. She heard scarcely any 
sound. She told herself that it was the waiting to see 
his dear face which made the waiting seem so long. 

She listened so intently for any sound that she heard 
bells ringing and no actual sound, even as one who 
stares intently in a dim light sees many golden specks 
but no real image. 

The door began to open slowly—oh, so dreadfully 
slowly. Surely she had not lost sense of time ? It 
opened a little way and was still; it opened further and 
was still ; it was wide open, and no one passed. What 
were they bringing in to need the door so widely open ? 
Not a tray. She didn’t want anything or anyone but 
her husband. Him she wanted, only to let him know 
how much she loved him. The door remained still. 

He entered. He was leaning against the wall, and 
glided as if he slipped. His head was surrounded by the 
pale pattern of roses. His hands hung palm outward, 
and swung without rhythm. 

“ Arnold.” 

He smiled ; for the first time he had forgotten to smile 
before he came to her. 

“ You look strange. You look like your own spirit.” 

“ Am I so—so—I have forgotten the word.” 

“ Come closer, Arnold. There is a stain on your bps.” 

“ Paint, off a brush.” 

“ Won’t you come to me, Arnold ? Won’t you come 
to me ? ” 

“ I mustn’t come. I didn’t think they would let you 
see me twice to-day, dearest Bennetta.” 


APRIL 


315 


“ To me—Bennetta. Won’t you come and touch 
me ? ” 

“ I can’t, Bennetta.” 

“ But the tears are running down your face and you 
don’t know what you are doing.” 

“ I can’t, Bennetta.” 

“ They have told you then. And I begged of them 
to let me tell you myself.” 

“ They have told me nothing. He said you needed 
me.” 

“ Then why do you look like that ? You have always 
such a beautiful face for a man’s ; but it hurts me now. 
And why are you still smiling ? ” 

“ You frightened me a little. He said I must come. 
He said I might stay. I don’t understand. Is the 
sonny dead ? ” 

“ No, he’s in the next room, bonny, Arnold,” she said. 
“ Arnold, come and put your head beside me on the 
pillow and be close to me, because I want you to be very 
close to me while I am dying. I might not be able to 
speak more than a whisper soon, and I want the last 
thing I say to be ‘ I love you, Arnold,’ and I want you 
to hear me say it.” 

Startled beyond the knowledge of his own mortal 
pain, he looked at Bennetta. He looked round the 
room, as if for explanation from the walls. Upon a 
side-table was a small bell. He flung out his hand and 
struck it. 

Dr. Rainsford came into the room. 

“Is it true ? ” asked Arnold. 

“ Quite true. Everything possible has been done.” 

“ Will you help me to the bed ? I am not the man 
I was.” 

The doctor consented by complying. 

“You will leave us alone together ? ” asked Arnold. 
“ Right until nothing matters ? Thank you. Will you 
unloose the plaiting of my wife’s hair ? ” 

Arnold laid his head within the torrent of unwoven 
curls. The door closed softly. 

“You are not to worry, Arnold.” 


316 


HAMMER MARKS 


“ You are a good woman, Bennetta.” 

“ You are all a man should be, beloved. Will you 
kiss me and tell me that God is good to us ? For He is 
good to me.” 

“ God is very, very good to me, Bennetta. How good 
you will not know for a little while, but you will see into 
my heart soon. You will see also how much I love you.” 

Bennetta stirred. 

“ I love you, Arnold,” she whispered. 


MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY 
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